


neap tides/spring tides

by eke



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Past Sokka/Yue (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Science Bowl, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, bumi is the coach, i can't believe how well-used that tag is i love this fandom, if that's not clear lol, no bending they're literally just nerds who love science, no internalized homophobia the angst comes from personal tragedy, past suki/kyoshi, sokka and suki are bffs, the real love story is between me and wikipedia, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29692572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eke/pseuds/eke
Summary: Public magnet school Omashu High and prestigious boarding school Sozin Academy have been Science Bowl rivals for years-- and the antagonism between Sokka and Zuko has gotten personal. Sokka and Suki plan to lead their ragtag band of misfits to victory, but what will happen when emotions run high and personal rivalries become… well… even more personal?(Basically: Nerdy high school Gaang and Zukka hijinx, strung together with rom com tropes and science puns, served atop a way more heaping portion of angst than I intended. If that’s your trash, then enjoy.)
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 40





	1. Reactants

**Author's Note:**

> All Science Bowl questions are real and authored by the DOE's National Science Bowl and can be found here:  
> https://science.osti.gov/wdts/nsb/Regional-Competitions/Resources/HS-Sample-Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Science Bowl practice, we learn the rules of the competition, a little more about our heroes... and what's at stake.

Despite the February draft in Bumi’s classroom that kept it almost unfairly cold, Sokka was sweating. He did the mental calculations quickly. Three questions left. He and Toph were 4 points behind Suki and Aang. So close, just a toss-up to tie it up. He realized he was doodling on his paper again, and clenched his ballpoint pen tighter to stop himself. He was almost out of room on his allotted two sheets.

Looking poised and calm despite reading questions fully decked out in her winter coat and hat, Katara took a breath and read through the next question, pronouncing each word carefully and clearly.

“Tossup, twenty-two. Earth and space. Short answer. Lake Vostok, an Antarctic subglacial lake, is thought to be a potential analogue for two bodies of astrobiological interest. Name one.”

Barely after she exhaled the final syllable of the sentence, before his brain even knew the answer consciously, Sokka buzzed in, feeling a savage flare of triumph when he heard Suki go at the same time and saw his own buzzer light up.

Katara nodded, acknowledging him. “Close to an interrupt, Sokka.”

He had been flirting with danger there, for sure. Crucial Rule of Science Bowl #1: only interrupt when you were certain you were correct. If you interrupted the judge and answered incorrectly, the other team got four points and a free opportunity to answer the question.

Sokka thought the question back through for one moment, definitely not 100% confident, but at least 85%. It was close, and the upside of getting this right and keeping the bonus out of Suki and Aang’s hands was too good to pass on. “Europa,” he guessed, remembering the ocean thought to exist beneath the icy layers of one of Jupiter’s bajillion (okay, seventy-nine) moons, the one that maybe could hold alien life.

“Correct,” Katara said, reading off the answers from the folder of questions from previous competitions that Bumi kept in a file cabinet. “The other one’s Enceladus.”

Toph reached her hand out to Sokka for a fist bump. He gave it to her, feeling the rush of pulling a correct toss-up out of nothing but vague supposition. Tie score. They were in this now, allowed to consult together on the bonus.

“Bonus. Short answer.” Katara tucked her hair behind her ears, then adjusted the hood of her winter coat. “Most sea ice exiting the Arctic Basin passes through what large strait between Greenland and Svalbard?”

“Ah, shit,” said Toph. “I know this. Starts with an F. The something strait.”

Sokka had no idea. They had twenty seconds to come up with an answer, just the two of them. Bonuses were always the same topic as their toss-up. “F… Frozen. Fjord. C’mon, Earth Science girl.”

“This is basically fricking geography. Flume?” Toph twisted her bangs around her finger like she always did when she was thinking. “Frame?”

“F… fuck.”

“Five seconds,” Katara said.

Sokka was captain, at least for this practice team session, so he had to give the answer. “Flume Strait,” he said. It was the best they’d come up with.

Katara shook her head. “Fram Strait. Close, Toph.”

“Fram? Come on, that can’t possibly be real.” Sokka said. He really shouldn’t be mouthing off so much. This was their last practice before regionals, and it was important to get the rhythms right: buzz, wait to be acknowledged, answer carefully. But goofing around heckling each other during practice was half the fun.

Katara rolled her eyes, pointedly moving onto the next question. Only two left. “Toss-up. Chemistry. Multiple choice.”

Shit. This wasn’t good. Chem was Suki’s domain. He glanced at his best friend out of the corner of his eye, the actual team captain when they were competing as a group against other schools. Suki’s paper looked organized, though from his desk Sokka could make out the small corner of the paper that she allowed herself some space to doodle while she thought.

Katara read slowly. “The degree of unsaturation of a hydrocarbon containing two rings is equivalent to the degree of unsaturation of a hydrocarbon containing, W: alkane, X: alkene, Y: alkyne--”

Suki’s buzzer lit up. An interrupt. She was feeling the pressure, too.

Katara gave Suki a long look, testing her. Crucial Rule of Science Bowl #2: wait for the judge to acknowledge you before you spoke, or you lost the chance to answer the question. Finally, Katara let her off the hook. “Interrupt. Suki.”

“Y,” Suki said carefully. Crucial Rule of Science Bowl #3: On multiple-choice questions, you had to either refer to the letter choice, or say the exact words of the response. No mumblings, no misspeaks, or those points were lost-- and the other team had a chance to answer, with the knowledge of what you had guessed.

“That’s correct,” said Katara. As she read Suki and Aang their bonus question-- the coefficients for water and carbon dioxide in the balanced combustion equation for octane, which Sokka couldn’t remember because it was mentally filed away under _Suki’s got that one_ \-- Sokka leaned over to Toph. “We’re in this. Need these next two,” he said. 

Toph nodded grimly. Like Aang, Toph was a sophomore, but unlike Aang, this was her first year on the team at the somewhat underfunded school. She had come to the Omashu Magnet School for Engineering earlier this year. Aang had dragged her to Science Bowl practice when she showed up in his AP Environmental Science course as the only other sophomore, a blind fifteen-year-old who inhaled every audiobook, website, and podcast about glaciers, taiga biomes, and underwater volcanoes her laptop’s screen reader could deliver.

Suki had been impressed by Toph’s breadth of knowledge about Earth Science and courage on the buzzer. Sokka had been impressed by her flagrant disregard for all authorities she disagreed with. She was a rich kid, a transplant from the prestigious boarding school Sozin Academy, which she had been “asked to leave” (aka expelled from) after a few too many “unexcused absences” (aka skipping the classes she thought were boring and releasing one little colony of fire ants in her much loathed English teacher Mr. Zhao’s classroom). Now she was “kickin’ it public school style,” as she liked to put it.

She’d been a huge pickup, especially since the team would be graduating Suki and Sokka after this year. But she was a little raw. Sokka did what he could to try to explain the strategy along the way, but there was no teacher like experience, and that’s what she’d get at regionals this weekend.

“Five seconds,” Katara said. 

Suki and Aang had been conferring in whispers. Suki nodded, tucked her hair behind her ears, read from her sheet. “Sixteen for carbon dioxide, eighteen for water.”

“That’s correct,” Katara said. “Next question--”

“Use our team name, Katara!” Aang said, grinning.

Katara rolled her eyes. “That’s correct, _Aangular Momentum_. Next question.”

Since it was the last practice before regionals, they’d thought about asking Bumi to read for them so they could all participate. But the problem with Bumi reading questions was that almost every single one spurred a tangent in his wandering brain, whether it was from his years of research on snake habitats, or his degrees in biology and geology, or just some bizarre theory his brain had concocted. It was fun, and damn did they learn some wild stuff, but today was all about replicating regionals as closely as possible.

That meant Katara was their reader, and Bumi was contentedly snoozing behind his desk, legs kicked up, chair leaned dangerously far back, emitting light snores. “Twenty-four. Toss-up. Biology. Multiple choice. Which of the following best describes how oxygen is stored in the muscles?”

Shit. Katara was the team’s anatomy and physiology whiz. Sokka was pretty good with neuro, but the musculoskeletal system was not his strong suit. He listened to the options. “W, spread throughout. X, bound to hemoglobin. Y, bound to calmodulin, Z, bound to myoglobin.”

Nobody buzzed.

Katara looked at all of them. “Really? Greek roots, people.”

Aang buzzed, waited to be acknowledged. “X,” he said after Katara nodded to him. This was his second year on the team. When he’d shown up as a bald, tattooed freshman last year after being homeschooled on the road his whole life by the monk who’d raised him (yeah, even Toph’s background didn’t hold a candle to Aang’s), Sokka had no idea what to expect. And it was true, Aang could be an absolute wild card. He had massive, seemingly random gaps in his knowledge, especially when it came to math. But he was fascinated by energy and knew more about renewables than anyone on the team, he inhaled new facts and knowledge like they were air, and most of all, he was quick to layer pranks, games, and bets into their practices.

Katara sighed. “Sorry, that’s incorrect.”

Thank you, Aang. Sokka slammed his hand down on the buzzer. He had been torn between X and Z. “Z,” he said, after Katara acknowledged him.

“Correct, Sokka,” said Katara. “C’mon, y’all, _myo-_ is muscle.”

“I thought _myo-_ was mushroom,” Aang said, crestfallen.

“Close, you’re thinking of _myco-_ ,” said Suki, never one to miss out on a teachable moment.

“Sorry, Suki,” Aang said flopping the hood of his heavy sweatshirt over his head and burying his face in his arms.

Suki patted his back. This wasn’t her first time around the block, and Sokka knew that as good as she was with Chemistry and as level as she stayed during stressful bonuses, this was what made her a great team captain: cool-headed and warm-hearted even when her teammates messed up. “No worries, kiddo, gotta shoot your shot sometimes.”

“Just read us our bonus, Katara,” Toph said, tapping her pen against the desk. They had decided on teams that morning in the groupchat-- making sure to split Sokka and Suki, the two seniors-- and had been trash talking pretty much since then. Toph and Aang had bet milkshakes on the outcome of today’s practice. Usually these were dollar bets, or bets like "loser has to lick Bumi's ball python", but they'd brought out the high stakes for the last practice before regionals.

Katara turned the page. “Bonus, biology, short answer. Name two cellular organelles besides the nucleus that contain a genome.”

“Mitochondria,” Toph and Sokka said to each other at the same time. Okay, one down. Mentally, Sokka flipped through his memory of the animal cell diagram in his biology textbook, listing organelles out loud as he went. Good teams always discussed bonuses. “Okay, ribosomes, lysosomes, Golgi thingies, smooth ER, rough ER… none of those have DNA, right?”

Toph blew the bangs that covered her eye out of her face. “Don’t think so.”

“Even Golgi bodies?” asked Sokka, mentally selecting that as his best guess if they couldn’t come up with anything else.

Toph shook her head. Sokka wanted to keep talking, which was how he sorted through his thoughts, but he’d found that Toph sometimes did her best when she had silence to dig back through her mental auditory encyclopedia.

“Five seconds,” Katara said.

Toph’s face lit up. “Wait! Fucking plant cells!”

Right. Chloroplasts had DNA. “Mitochondria and chloroplasts,” Sokka said to Katara, then couldn’t help but adding. “Hell _yes_ , Toph.”

“Correct,” said Katara, grinning. “Watch your language, people, that’s not gonna fly this weekend. Okay, last question.”

“We’re tied, right?” asked Toph.

“Not for long,” said Suki, resting her hand on the buzzer. Sokka did too. Come on, Physics, he thought. That was probably the category where he had the biggest edge on Suki, other than anything related to Astronomy. But Astronomy was under the umbrella Earth and Space, and they’d just had an Earth and Space question. Sokka was pretty much the team's generalist though, so honestly, the more trivial and weird the question was, the better. Come on, come on...

“Toss-up. Energy, Multiple choice. Which of the following states has the highest potential for wind energy generation? W, Illinois. X, Arkansas. Y, Michigan. Z. North Dakota--”

Four hands slammed on buzzers, but the one that lit up was Aang’s. Dammit, Sokka thought, but even though they were enemies right now, he was glad the kid hadn’t let his previous wrong answer stifle his nerve. “Z,” he said confidently. They all probably could have guessed that one based on a little critical thinking, but Aang knew so much about climate science and energy efficiency that it wouldn’t surprise Sokka if he could rank all the states by wind energy potential.

“That’s correct,” Katara said. Aang and Suki high fived, two-handed, having locked up the question and the win with it whether or not they got the bonus.

Katara read it anyway, because Katara was a stickler. So while Suki and Aang scribbled calculations for a bonus question about converting kilo-watt hours into microwave time, Sokka turned to Toph. “We were close,” he said.

“Frickin’ Fram Strait,” she said, leaning back in her chair and kicking her legs up onto the desk in front of her. It never failed to impress Sokka how confidently she could inhabit the space around her despite her blindness.

“That was a dumb one,” he told her. “Not our fault. Sometimes it comes down to luck.”

He leaned back in his chair, too, looked around Bumi’s classroom, nostalgia settling over him like the snow settling over the streets, cars, and trees outside the window. This was going to be his fourth and last regionals. Outside of the two classes he’d had in here (AP Bio and AP Environmental Science), he ate lunch in here most days, and had had four years of Science Bowl practices to boot. The snake skeleton and dozens of spent snakeskins pinned to the corkboard, the pile of rocks stacked on the side table in interesting formations (that got re-stacked whenever they inevitably got knocked over by Bumi making too wild a gesture or a hapless freshman not used to the chaos), the sculpture of a glyptodont made of packing peanuts and duct tape that some seniors had made a few years back… it was all so familiar to Sokka, comforting in its disarray and discombobulation and draftiness.

Speaking of, he was cold now that his sweat was evaporating. Nature’s cooling system. He pulled his jacket on, the denim one lined with fleece. It was a hand-me-down from his dad, and though it had been mended dozens of times and smelled, faintly, of fish, it was one of his most prized possessions.

Suki and Aang got their bonus right. Toss-ups were worth four points and bonuses eight, leaving them twelve points in the lead. “Looks like milkshakes are on Toph, y'all,” Aang said, pulling the wool hat Katara had knitted him onto his shaved head.

Suki glanced at her watch. She'd had her one moment of celebration with Aang, now she was back to business. (Bumi’s classroom had three clocks, but none of them displayed the correct time.) “We should wrap up, anyway. I want us all getting plenty of good food and rest this week. That’s going to make way more difference than a few extra rounds on the buzzer.”

Sokka looked over at Bumi, who was snoring gently. “Bumi. Bumi!” he called.

The teacher opened one eye, not otherwise moving.

“You’ll be at the competition at eight am Saturday, right?” Sokka asked.

“What time zone?” croaked Bumi.

Sokka and Suki exchanged glances. With Bumi, you could never be more than fifty percent sure he was joking. He lived on his own planet. Hell, maybe his own plane of existence. “Well, Eastern Time,” Suki said. “The one where we live.”

“Just making sure,” Bumi said, finally kicking his legs off his desk and stretching. “In this day and age, you can’t be too careful.”

Sokka grinned. Okay, joke. “Any last advice for us as we prep for this weekend?” he asked.

Bumi thought for a long moment, stroking his long white beard. “Remember, if it kills you when it bites you, it’s venomous. But if it kills you when you bite it… it’s poisonous.”

“Is that Science Bowl advice or life advice, Bumi?” Suki asked, twinkle in her eye.

“Yes,” their coach said, yawning and closing his eyes once again.

Some teams had coaches that gave strategies, that took care of substitution, that read questions. They had Bumi. But to be honest, Sokka wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Okay, let’s get cleaned up and bring it in, y’all,” said Suki. Aang put away the buzzers while Katara reshelved the practice questions onto one of Bumi’s overflowing bookshelves. Once they were more or less regrouped, Suki led them in a guided meditation. They had started closing their practices with this after Toph and Katara had gotten into a yelling match over the pronunciation of "Gondwanaland" a few weeks ago. It was a good way to relax together.

Sokka opened his eyes, peeking at the group, breathing extra loudly to make up for his indiscretion. Suki sat straight as an arrow, hands resting in her lap, as she guided everyone to take extra-long exhales “to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.” Toph lay on her back on the ground, head resting on her backpack. Katara had pulled the fur-lined hood of her coat all the way up and had her scarf wrapped around her neck, and Aang-- his eyes were open too, watching Katara, a goofy grin on his face.

Sokka cleared his throat. Aang jumped, closed his eyes again. Sokka grinned. He probably shouldn’t tease the kid-- he was so damn sincere and he followed Katara around like a puppy dog-- but it was too easy.

“All right, everyone. Thanks for taking the time to relax a bit,” Suki said. “Now before we head out... battle plans, co-captain?” 

It was sweet, honestly, her insistence that she and Sokka were co-captains, despite the fact that during the competition itself teams could only have one designated captain. And Sokka had to admit, she was better in the captain’s seat when it came to bonuses-- listening to everyone’s ideas and her own intuition, distilling that chaos down into the best answer, and delivering it clearly and correctly.

But Sokka’s strength? That was marshalling the troops.

“You know it, Suki. All right, kids. Let’s talk battle plans,” Sokka said, distributing copies of the weekend’s schedule that he’d made earlier that day on the rickety old copier, with Bumi’s “borrowed” copier key. “This regionals is gonna be different from every regionals Suki ‘n I have seen before, and here’s why. This year, there’s two slots to natties on the line.” 

Since out of the last three years, multiple teams from their region (aka Omashu Magnet and Sozin Academy) had placed in the top three at nationals, their region was now designated a “super region”, with two spots at nationals. When Bumi had forwarded that email to Suki and Sokka, they had screamed and danced around Suki’s kitchen for a solid five minutes. 

“Two spots to nationals means that we have some wiggle room,” continued Sokka. “If we'd had that last year, we'd have punched our ticket.”

Everyone in the room except Toph remembered that one, but she had been told the story numerous times. “So that means we could lose to Sozin and still make it?” she asked.

“We’re not losing to Sozin,” Sokka said, a little more sharply than he meant to.

Suki looked at him admonishingly, then spoke to the team. “We’ve prepared for this all year,” she said. “We just need to trust the work we’ve done, and walk in there with confidence that we’re the best team in the region. This extra slot to nationals is just extra padding. Padding that we helped earn when we got second at nationals me and Sokka’s sophomore year.” 

Sokka tried to smile reassuringly at Toph, even though she couldn’t see it. “That’s… uh, yeah, that’s what I meant. We can beat any team in the region. Even Sozin. Especially Sozin. And we’ve got wiggle room if we need it. Which we won’t.” He was quickly losing his train of thought. Memories of facing up to Sozin Academy at Science Bowl regionals the last few years made his pulse race. But now wasn’t the time. Now was the time to support his team with a pep talk. “We just have to be confident on the buzzer and careful with interruptions.” Time to shut up before he went too of the rails. He glanced at Suki. “Anything else to add, co-captain?” he asked, as he always did, giving the spotlight back to his more rational-thinking friend.

Suki smiled at him, looked at Katara, Aang, and Toph, and let out a breath. “Let’s fucking do this,” she said, echoing her usual comment. 

And with that, their last practice before regionals was complete. The transition back from Science Bowl Serious Mode to five nerds goofing around could commence. Scarves, hats, mittens-- mostly knitted by Katara-- were retrieved and doffed, parkas zipped against the February chill. 

“So… heard a rumor about milkshakes on Toph for the winning team?” Suki said, pulling her hair out of the tight topknot she wore when she was concentrating, letting it bounce around her face.

“Yeah, yeah, milkshakes on Toph,” Toph grumbled. “A Beifong always pays her debts.”

“Plus one for Katara for being the reader,” said Aang.

“I’d rather get something hot,” said Katara. “I’m freezing. Tea?”

“Sokka, can you drive us?” Toph asked.

Sokka sighed, but he’d known this was coming. “C’mon, peeps. Let’s get in the truck.”

They left behind a chorus of goodbyes to their coach, and Aang’s left mitten. No matter. They'd get it back later. As regional champions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so when i started writing this it was supposed to be a short and fluffy one-shot about this silly idea of the gaang being a Science Bowl team and having bending elements correspond (roughly) to science domains..... but then i did the thing where i imagined the everyone's backstories in this universe, and it was like.... "oops! all angst!" and i accidentally wrote....... a lot of words.
> 
> anyway i have this whole piece about halfway written, but in my usual style that means i have about half of every chapter written, which means that it is GOING to be finished... just a matter of getting all the pieces in place. i am going to try like the dickens to update once a week. it's already way longer than i want it to be--- and overwriting is NOT usually my problem, more the opposite--- so it may be a hot mess of typos. but we out here tryin.
> 
> this is probably going to even out to like 50% nerdy friend hijinx and ~team catharsis~, 45% zukka angst, and 5% bad science metaphors. i am having a lot of fun with it.


	2. Activation Energy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trip to a fancy tea shop. What could go wrong?

Sokka had gotten used to driving the whole team home from their city school on Wednesdays after Science Bowl practice. He was the only one with a car, the beaten up old pickup that he had bought from their family friend Bato, the one that he used to help his dad haul lobstering equipment in the summers. And on Wednesdays, Katara was coming home with him anyway, and Suki usually tagged along to do calc homework, and Aang lived on the way out of the city, and Toph didn’t live that far from Aang…

So even though it took most of an hour, Sokka didn’t mind being Truck Dad. They walked through the pathetically small student parking lot toward the halfway decent spot he’d managed to snag that morning, Katara and Toph walking arm in arm to make walking on the snow and ice a little easier. “All right, where we getting milkshakes?” Sokka asked. “Preferably somewhere on the way to Toph’s.”

Aang spoke up. Despite the February chill, he was just wearing his hoodie. Sokka had never understood how he stayed so warm. “Toph, what if we got bubble tea instead of milkshakes? Then Katara could get something hot if she wanted.”

Toph’s face lit up. “Ooh! I know the perfect place! And it’s right near my house.”

Suki, designated permanent shotgun in Sokka’s car, was already getting her phone out to pull up directions. “What’s it called?”

“The Jasmine Dragon,” Toph said.

“What’s the damage?” Sokka asked Suki. A few flakes of snow were starting to fall. He wanted to get everyone home before the roads got too icy.

She held up her phone. The tea shop was twenty minutes away, right in Toph’s fancy neighborhood. “All right,” he said. “Jasmine Dragon it is. Pile in, kids.”

*

Omashu High was a magnet school, pulling from all over the city, from the pristine and polished financial district where Toph lived and where Sozin Academy’s manicured grounds were, to the outlying neighborhoods where Suki and Aang’s homes were, to the somewhat dingy port where Sokka and Katara lived with their father and grandmother. 

The Jasmine Dragon was right by Sozin Academy, as it turned out. As Sokka drove past the manicured gardens and iron-wrought gates of the boarding school that screamed of prestige and wealth, he felt his stomach clenched with nerves. This year, they were going to do it. They were going to beat those assholes.

“Okay, I think it’s on the right up here-- there,” Suki directed Sokka, one hand holding her phone, map app up, plugged into the aux blasting her “drivin’ peeps home :)” playlist, the other hand absentmindedly snapping her lucky fan open and shut. This was not her first rodeo manning the command central in Sokka's truck.

Relieved that the snow was light and the parking lot not too full, Sokka pulled the old truck into the tiny parking lot next to the coffee shop, the mud-splattered pickup out of place among the fancier cars.

Katara and Aang were huddled over the online menu for the Jasmine Dragon in the backseat, Toph listening in. “Ooh, I think I want hot chai,” Katara said. “Are we going inside?”

Sokka looked up at the sky. The snowfall was still gentle, but from the forecast and the pressure changes that had been showing on Bumi’s antique barometer, it was going to continue steadily. “Let’s get drinks to go,” he said. “Wanna get everyone home before it’s snowing snowing.”

“Sounds good. Chai for Katara. Twinkle toes? Fangirl? I owe you a drank,” said Toph.

Suki’s lucky bamboo fan had earned her this particular Toph nickname. She always needed to be doing something with her hands, and the fan was a perfect tool, ready to be flicked open, flipped shut, ribs counted and fiddled with. It had been a hand-me-down from Kyoshi-- when Sokka chided her for carrying a torch, she had hit him with it and said that it was a captain thing, not a relationship thing, which had shut him up. Sokka thought it was maybe secretly still the Kyoshi fan more than the captain’s fan (after all, Kyoshi, their badass and brilliant and bloodthirsty captain had given it to Suki, not to Roku, when she graduated), but he didn’t give her too much shit about it. She’d been through enough with all that. 

Suki snapped the fan shut. “I’ll take a hot chai, too. Thanks Toph.”

“Bubble tea for me!” Aang said. “You need a hand carrying, Toph?”

Sokka yawned and stretched. “I got it,” he said. “Losers stick together.” He couldn’t help but root for Aang's puppy dog crush on his sister sometimes. He didn’t much like or trust Katara’s current boyfriend. The least he could do was let Aang sit with her in the backseat every once in a while. (With Suki there chaperoning, of course.)

He and Toph left the warmth of the pickup for the frigid air and the painful white pinpricks of snow, the kind that were so frozen they were tiny ice crystals instead of the big wet clumps that were fun to pack and throw at his sister but hell to drive in. Then, another rush of temperature change as Sokka pushed the door open and held it for Toph. He loved the strange, steamy feeling of going from the painful New England winter to a warm and pleasant indoor space with windows fogged from heat. He unzipped his jacket. Unlike Katara, he ran hot.

The Jasmine Dragon was crowded, warm, filled with chatter and art. It was several steps nicer than the Dunkin Donuts near the port where Sokka got iced coffees when he needed to stay up late studying. There were a lot of Sozin Academy blazers on teens in the booths and at the tables. 

So that was how Toph knew this place. Sokka looked among them for anyone he recognized from Science Bowl (okay, mainly one person)-- but to his mingled relief and disappointment, didn’t see anyone familiar.

Sokka nudged Toph with his arm for her to take if she wanted, which she did. She got through public spaces well enough with her cane, but in crowds she liked a sighted guide. They went to the counter, where Sokka’s eyes first went to the (high) prices and then to the old man behind the counter.

“Toph, it’s been a while,” he said. He had a slow, low voice, and an expression that showed both serenity and steel. It kind of reminded Sokka of Aang’s monk dad.

Sokka looked at Toph her in surprise, but she just smiled back at the old man. “Hi, Iroh. I switched schools. Haven’t been hanging around this part of town as much,” she said.

“I hope you’re enjoying your new experience,” he said. “And you’ll always be welcome anytime. Now, what can I get you and your friend?” 

Toph counted on her fingers. “Okay, two bubble teas, two hot chais, and… Sokka?” Toph asked.

This was where it felt a little uncomfortable having a rich friend. He couldn’t help but look at prices of fun and calculate, _okay, one bubble tea is one gallon of gas, is half an hour’s wages hauling lobster pots in the summer, is..._

But that was why Toph offered, a lot of the time, and anyway, he drove everyone around anywhere, and anyway, it wasn’t transactional, they were friends. Or so he told himself, over and over. Katara always told him not to be weird about it. “Large iced coffee, please,” he said.

The old man behind the counter nodded, rang Toph up, called the order back to the barista in the green apron. While they waited for their drinks, Sokka looked at Toph. “Didn’t know you were a regular here,” he said.

She shrugged. “I’d hang here during my free periods with some of the other day schoolers since my parents didn’t let me board. Guess the little blind girl sticks out in Iroh’s memory.”

Sokka grinned. “Or someone warned him about the fire ant bandit.”

“That was a crime of passion,” Toph said. “Passion and opportunity. Can you imagine the logistics it would take to bring a den of fire ants here?”

They argued for a while about what type of insect nest would be easiest to infest the coffee shop with, Toph claiming that termites would be the best choice (“their queens are basically just giant floppy gummies!”) while Sokka advocated a position of portability (“look, have you ever knocked a wasp’s nest down? It’s light as paper, even with wasps still inside.”)

This passed the time well enough before their drinks came. The old man had placed the teas in a cardboard tray, the large iced coffee beside it, already beading with condensation.

After de-wrappering the straw with his teeth and stabbing it into the plastic, he grabbed the tray of drinks, took a long sip of his iced coffee (yeah, you weren’t a real New Englander unless you were drinking iced coffee in February), and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “All right, I’m loaded up like a mule. You good?” he asked Toph.

She nodded, gesturing with her cane. “Lead on, Captain Boomerang.”

Sokka wasn't even sure where that nickname had come from.

With his free hand, he rifled through the pocket of his fleece-lined denim jacket for the car keys. As he approached the door, already mentally preparing to push it open with his shoulder, he could have sworn he heard a familiar voice answer someone asking where the bathroom was. “It’s right around back, to the left.” 

Sokka swung his head around, looked back at the tables, and-- _there._ Zuko. He was almost unrecognizable-- hair that had previously been in a high, tight ponytail, and later a harsh buzz, now chopped, soft, messy, spilling over his face-- voice that Sokka had only ever heard confidently unpacking logarithms and theories of electromagnetism now speaking in a soft, customer-service timbre-- the sharp uniform of Sozin Academy replaced with a green apron of the Jasmine Dragon… 

He was almost unrecognizable. But the evidence was there in the angry red scar splashed across his face, the golden brown eyes that Sokka had never forgotten. 

The old lady walked off to the bathroom and Zuko continued wiping down tables, clearing dishes into a plastic bin.

Seeing his Science Bowl nemesis there, wiping tables, broke something in Sokka’s brain. He looked away sharply, kept walking, already panicking that Zuko would see him. Not that there was any reason for him to be worried that Zuko would see him, so why was he freaking out, other than the fact that, well, he didn’t have any witty barbs lined up, and this was Zuko, and he looked a little softer and happier than he had in the past and also maybe hotter than ever with his hair rumpled like that--

About eight levels of angst and meta-angst deep, Sokka’s brain short-circuited like an overloaded capacitor. He was at the door, Toph right with him. Desperate to leave quickly, without being seen, he pushed it with his shoulder.

And saw the sign that said “Pull” right as he smashed into it, iced coffee in his arm now… all over his front.

Well. Zuko was looking now.

“Jeez, Sokka,” said Toph. “Walk much?”

Sokka closed his eyes. “Toph, can you just...” he said.

“Sorry,” she said.

She held the cardboard tray of unharmed drinks while he grabbed a huge wad of napkins from the dispenser. He crouched down to mop up the spilled coffee and scattered ice, face burning, front soaking wet.

“Hey, I can get this,” a soft voice said, someone crouching down beside him.

Sokka looked up. Zuko was there next to him on the floor, pile of rags in one hand, roll of paper towels in the other.

Sokka looked back down at his sodden napkins. This was not how he had intended for their next meeting to go. And this image of Zuko-- a Zuko directing old ladies to the bathroom and helping clean up spills from dumbass customer-- did not jive with his previous experiences at all.

Zuko tackled the majority of the coffee, which was spreading like a tidal plain, while Sokka picked up the larger ice cubes and dropped them back into the broken plastic cup. The air between them felt like static electricity, crackling with charge differential. 

“It’s Sokka, right?” Zuko asked.

Any part of Sokka’s brain that had not already been fried by the previous events shut down. “Yeah,” he said, warily.

“You going to be there this weekend?” Zuko asked.

The spill was mostly under control, though someone would probably need to take a mop to it. Sokka pushed himself back up to his feet, halfheartedly patting his sodden napkins against his soaked shirt and jacket. (God dammit, his favorite jacket.) “I’ll be there,” he said, trying to convey as much bravado and confidence as he could while covered in cold coffee.

Zuko gave a small nod to that. His eyes drifted to the cup in Sokka’s hands. “Let me get you another coffee,” he said.

Sokka would rather spill ten more drinks in public than let this boy do a single favor for him. “I’m good,” he said.

There was a pause, one just long enough to feel weird. “It’s on me,” Zuko said awkwardly. Sokka’s insides clenched. Because you’re poor, his brain filled in the rest. He remembered the previous competitions, the last times he had seen Zuko, and his stomach twisted.

He stared at the other boy, his gaze harder this time. “I said I’m good,” he said.

Zuko looked at the ground.

“See you this weekend,” Sokka said, making sure to put some threat behind it. They were going to beat Sozin. They had to. “Let’s get out of here, Toph.”

For once, she didn’t make a comment. He took the cardboard tray from her, pulled open the door (so preoccupied with leaving with dignity he almost tried to push it again first), and ushered her out. They walked across the parking lot together, arm in arm through the snow starting to fall more quickly now, Sokka resisting the temptation to look back.

“Dude, what the hell was that?” Toph asked. “Your heart is like… pounding right now.”

Sokka said nothing. When they got back to the pickup, he opened the back, thrust the drink tray into a startled Aang’s hands, and went back to the driver’s seat.

Suki saw the storm clouds on his face. “What happened?” she said.

He still wasn't even sure what to say. He turned the keys in the ignition, buckled his belt. When he looked up through the windshield, he could see Zuko, standing in the doorway, separated by yet another layer of glass.

“Who’s Zuko?” Toph whispered in the backseat.

“He’s the captain of the Sozin Academy Science Bowl team,” Aang whispered back.

“Oh shit! I remember him from Sozin, wondered if it was the same guy,” Toph said. “What’s with him and Sokka?”

Nobody said anything. Sokka glanced up, caught Katara’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Toph…” said Katara. “Leave it be for a bit.”

Nobody commented on Sokka’s soaked shirt, but when Aang handed Suki her hot chai, she handed it to Sokka. They traded long sips, back and forth, as Sokka drove the group home underneath a gray and white sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a lil momentum right now so i'm posting this one a couple days earlier than i thought! i hope it is enjoyable.... can't handle how silly this idea is but i'm still having a ton of fun in this AU. next up, we're gonna get some of that sweet sweet backstory.
> 
> also this is set in like... alternate universe new england. so i'm being kind of vague. mostly i'm just stuck in new england late covid winter right now and writing this is how i am processing that angst lol.
> 
> big thank you to the folks who have taken the time to drop a kudo or a subscribe, it does mean a lot.
> 
> also FYI i am Not Good at social media but i am technically on tumblr under "windowsillgarlic" so if anyone wants to yell about zukka, memes, or writing more generally, that's where i am.


	3. Chemical Equation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night before regionals, Sokka reflects on the team's past (and maybe on a boy that's been stuck in his mind for a few years now). A late-night trip to the beach with Katara.

It was Friday, a little after eleven. Less than seven hours before Sokka would roll out of bed, make a big thermos of instant coffee, and drive Katara and Suki to Ba Sing Se High School, where Science Bowl Regionals were being held. It was a good hour away, and they needed Suki there by 8AM sharp for the division draw.

It was always an early, exhausting day, over by three in the afternoon. Sokka knew he should be sleeping. But he was wired on the large Dunkin’s iced coffee he’d had after school while he and Suki put off studying for their calc test Monday to quiz each other on physics equations, chem formulas, and every random piece of scientific trivia they could think of. And even without the caffeine, he was pretty sure he’d be lying awake anyway.

So here he was, on the floor of his attic bedroom, Bio textbook open to the chapter about plant biology, astronomy textbook he’d swiped from Bumi’s classroom open to the section explaining the seven-stage life of a star, from giant gas cloud to supernova.

But he wasn’t paying attention. He was thinking through his last three Science Bowls. Thinking about Zuko. Ever since he had run into him at the coffee shop, he hadn’t been able to get him off his mind. It was strange, how someone he barely knew had imprinted himself so deeply in Sokka’s brain. 

Freshman year, his first Science Bowl. It was the first thing that had really distracted him since his mom had died of breast cancer that summer, that made him feel part of a team. Kuruk was captain, Kyoshi was a junior, Roku a sophomore. Sokka and Suki were the two freshmen. That year they had had more of a tumultuous relationship. They’d dated for a couple weeks, in the nothing way that nerdy freshmen do, until Suki came out to him as a lesbian. Sokka had walked around all butthurt like a jerk for a few days before realizing they could still be friends.

They had patched things up by February. Only four players for a team could play at a time, so they took turns in the alternate spot all day at Regionals, giving the older students more time in the competition. Sokka was the one who played the first half of the match against Sozin Academy in their round robin. 

He interrupted on a toss-up about main-sequence stars, one he was excited he knew. So excited that he blurted out the answer before the judge acknowledged him.

That meant the other team got four points, and a free shot at the question. Zuko, the freshman with the golden brown eyes and the high, tight topknot buzzed in, waited pointedly to be acknowledged, echoed Sokka’s answer. Then looked back him and smirked.

It made Sokka’s blood boil. Even though it also, well, confirmed some other stuff Sokka had been kicking around in the old brain since Suki came out, about how he definitely liked girls, but maybe also liked guys. Especially brilliant guys with a cocky attitude and dark hair.

But the attraction wasn’t anything compared to the irritation Sokka felt with Zuko, and really, with himself. Especially when they lost that round in a nailbiter, and Kyoshi gave him a tongue-lashing for interrupting that he still hadn’t forgotten to this day.

Sophomore year had been very different. He had pulled Katara in, too, hoping she’d get as much fun and friendship out of it as he had. Kyoshi had been captain. She and Suki had been circling each other all year, it seemed like. She was hands-down the most fearsome captain Sokka had ever seen, and she kept monkey business to a minimum. 

Sokka had mixed feelings about the experience. He had learned a ton from her, and she mowed down the competition remorselessly, almost an army of one. But Katara had been the lone freshman that year, and she barely got any time active in the game. That, he didn’t like. It was important to make sure the younger players got time to improve.

Still, for better or for worse, Kyoshi’s ruthlessness had paid off: that was the last time Omashu Magnet had made Science Bowl nationals.

That was also the year Zuko had shown up to the competition wearing a hoodie instead of a blazer, hood up, covering up bandages covering up half his face. All through the match between Omashu and Sozin Academy, when Kyoshi had blazed through toss-up after toss-up, getting most of them (though there was a Sozin freshman, a girl with two buns and a face that looked like she was permanently sucking on something sour, that had somehow won every math toss-up), Sokka had kept one eye on Zuko. He hadn’t buzzed in once, the entire time.

After they won, after giddily celebrating their victory, Sokka hugging Katara, high-fiving Roku, Kyoshi grabbing Suki in a fierce and startling first kiss, to the surprise of everyone in the room, Suki most of all-- Sokka, feeling overwhelmed, needing to calm down, had walked away down the hall. 

He just intended to go and pace, let out a little energy, but had paused when he happened to glance into an open classroom doorway and saw Zuko, sitting on a desk. He was staring down at his phone, shoulders so tense they might have been carved out of stone. When he glanced up, Sokka saw tears running down the half of his face that wasn’t covered by bandages.

They stared at each other, taken aback. Zuko pulled up his hood, quickly. “What,” he said tersely, then winced like speaking tugged on whatever wound was under the bandages.

Sokka couldn’t just let someone sit there in pain like that without trying to help. Not after everything that had happened with Yue that year. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?” He didn’t know if this was because they’d just lost the competition, or if something else was going on, but the guy looked nothing short of traumatized.

Zuko took a deep breath, staring down at his phone. When he looked up, the one eye Sokka could see was blazing with fury. “Leave me alone, you _fucking peasant_ ,” he said, anunciating the words slowly and carefully, voice tight with pain.

Sokka felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He walked right back out of the classroom, heart pounding. Later on, he’d be able to regain the excitement of making nationals (especially when the team traveled all the way to Calfornia for nationals together). Later on, he’d regain some of the flare of happiness that came with winning, of proving he was smart, was good enough. But the hurt and confusion of that moment had stayed stuck with him, too, like a pebble in his shoe.

It wasn't like he felt bad that his family had no money, that his school was underfunded and his future options were limited to jobs that could figure out how to earn him back whatever he and Katara spent on college. He would be lying if thinking back on that moment didn’t fuel him on a few late nights studying, inspiring him to go beyond what he was learning in his classes, pick up more about astronomy, more about the tides of the beaches near his house, the life cycles of the crustaceans his dad hauled in each summer and the fish he canned each winter.

By the time the next February came back up, Sokka was determined to be the best. Roku had tried his best to fill Kyoshi’s shoes as captain, but he didn’t carry quite the same authority, or the near-photographic memory for chemical equations and physics theorems, or absolute confidence for putting forth his best guesses on the buzzer. 

Still, Sokka and Suki were in AP Chem and Physics that year, and somewhere along the line Katara had converted her grief over their mother’s death into a single-minded desire to be a doctor. She had read pretty much every book she could get her hands on about cancer, which Sokka on some level felt worried about but also meant that she was a pretty great resource about Bio and A&P. 

Sokka was also out to pretty much everyone as bi by that point, which had done wonders for his confidence, and he had made out with a few people of various genders, trying to convince himself that he was over the whole Yue situation. But Suki had wilted a bit that year after Kyoshi broke up abruptly with her before leaving for college, so really, she more than anyone else was Sokka’s main focus. 

Wounded and wary in the trials of love, they gravitated toward each other’s friendship instead. Between the two of them, they focused on school, both of them with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. As a result, their junior year at Science Bowl, they had efficiently sliced their way through the competition.

They faced Sozin Academy last, and as nervous as Sokka felt about the competition, he felt more nervous about seeing Zuko.

That year, Zuko sat in the captain seat, his hair buzzed, his blazer back in place. No bandages, just a painful scar splashed across his face. Before the competition, Sokka had been determined not just to beat him, but to humiliate him. But seeing him in person before the round started, letting his imagination run wild about how awful the experience of getting that scar must have been-- that gave him a moment’s pause.

But then he remembered _fucking peasant_ and it was on.

He and Zuko were pretty evenly matched on Physics-- they each got one of the toss-ups. But what Sokka hadn’t counted on was the rest of Zuko’s teammates. No alternate-- but two more sophomores had joined the team, meaning it was Zuko and the three girls. One had accessorized her Sozin uniform with a gigantic pink hair bow had given Katara a run for her money on anatomy and bio, leaving her shaken. The other, last year’s math prodigy, continued to blow them all out of the water on math toss-ups, sounding bored and indifferent the entire time.

And then there was the last girl, the one who looked like Zuko. The one who somehow, despite being a sophomore, sniped Suki on a Chem question, nabbed a question about lightning from right out under Sokka, and beat Aang to a question about nuclear power. And who, when Pink Bow girl had gotten one of the bio questions wrong, leaving Katara to swoop back in, had berated her in front of everyone until the judge told her to stop.

In the second half, the Omashu team got their act together, but it wasn’t enough. Sozin’s lead was too big. They were going back to nationals. Omashu wasn’t.

But Sokka couldn’t help but notice that, even though they had won, none of the Sozin kids looked particularly happy. That on their side of the room, Suki had her arm around Roku, who had picked up some steam near the end but had brought too little, too late, and Aang and Katara were hugging each other at the end of a long day and frustrating ending-- on Sozin’s side, Math Girl and Bio Girl were quiet as Terrifying Girl lit into Zuko for having let Sokka beat him out the second half’s physics questions. “Isn’t that supposed to be the one thing you’re any good at, Zuzu?”

Zuko, looking away from her, accidentally made eye contact with Sokka. They had locked eyes for one long moment, before Sokka got pulled into a comforting group hug with his team.

And now, Sokka was trying to hold all those Zukos in his head. The cocky, the maimed, the angry, the quiet, the… strangely friendly. The Zuko who had been working at the Jasmine Dragon… seemed different, somehow.

That didn’t change the fact that Sokka really fucking wanted to beat him at Science Bowl.

Footsteps on the creaky stairs up to the attic bedroom. Sokka had moved up here when Gran Gran had moved in after their mom died. “Hey,” Katara said, poking her head into his room.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “It’s almost midnight. You should be asleep.”

“I was on the phone with Aang,” she said. “He’s really nervous for tomorrow. That kid puts the whole world on his shoulders.”

Sokka sighed. Poor Aang had had a rough childhood. There was a reason that science felt life or death to him. “You talk him down?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “But I’m kinda awake now.”

Sokka looked at his textbooks and sighed. Maybe it was all the caffeine, but sleep felt faraway to him, too. Apparently it was an angsty evening for everyone. “Beach walk?” he asked, only half-serious. It was late and bitterly cold.

But the sky was clear, and the nearly full moon was gorgeous through the little attic skylight. “Let’s do it,” she said.

They left the house, not worrying too much about being quiet since their dad was at work and Gran Gran slept like a rock. They lived just down the road from a little bay that they thought of as “their beach.” It was not a particularly nice one-- more rock than sand, and too much seaweed and algae to swim. It butted right up next to the harbor, so it tended to have a strong smell of fish coming from the nearby boats and the large fishery where Hakoda worked the night shift over the winters when lobsters were out of season.

But it had rocks to sit on, and a few scrubby bushes that whispered in the wind, and seagulls (mostly) and pipers (sometimes) and tidal boundaries that Sokka knew the shape of well. He came here often, sometimes with Katara, sometimes alone, especially at night. It was a good place to get out of the house, a place that sometimes felt so tight and tense with memories of his mom that he needed to burst out just to breathe. 

Although now that he thought about it, he and Katara hadn’t been to the beach together in a while. They’d been too busy with school, and in her case, dating an angsty edgelord.

It was nice, having a quiet moment with her. The moon was nearly full tonight. “Earth and Space, short answer. What phase is the moon in right now?” Sokka said as they picked their way down toward the beach.

Katara snorted. “Waxing gibbous. If they ask anything that easy tomorrow, I’ll be thankful.”

“We’ll be fine,” Sokka said, even though his stomach was churning. He zipped his coat all the way up to the collar. Katara and Gran Gran had approached the jacket like they were surgeons at some kind of laundry ER, ripping it off him as soon as he got home after dumping coffee all over himself. But to their credit (and also thanks to the faded stains that had already existed on the coat for years of Hakoda wearing it first), you couldn’t see any evidence of Sokka’s embarrassing moment.

Katara sat down on one of the larger rocks. Sokka went down toward the surf, finding himself the flattest, roundest rocks he could see in the darkness. It was low tide, the lowest it got. It felt like someone had drained the ocean.

They stayed silent a long while, lost in their own thoughts. They were easy together, especially in these moments close to home, late at night. Sokka skipped a rock, then another, then another. The moonlight was so bright he counted six bounces before he lost track of it in the darkness.

“Physics, short answer,” said Katara. “What property of water allows rocks to bounce across the surface?”

“Surface tension,” said Sokka. “Duh. Also, me being great at skipping rocks.”

“That’s not a property of water,” she said.

“Nope, just a universal truth,” he replied, looking up at the moon. It always reminded him of Yue. Wherever she was, he hoped, he prayed, he wished, that she was safe and happy. It killed him that he didn’t know.

“I wish Mom could come to regionals,” Katara said softly. “I think she would have really liked it.”

Sokka nodded. Kya’s death felt like a box he didn’t open, but Katara needed to talk it through sometimes. And she was right. Their mom would have loved hearing about Science Bowl. She would have come to regionals every year. She had been a librarian, and she and Hakoda had been equally insistent that their children were going to get the best education they could. “Once you learn something, no one can ever take away from you,” she always said to them, eyes fierce, whenever they complained as younger kids about the “finish all homework before TV” rule.

She had loved learning new things, equally as interested in hearing from Hakoda about the day-to-day workings of the lobster boat as she was Sokka’s books about space and the cool flowers Katara had found growing in the vacant lot out by the pier.

She would have been proud of them. Sokka knew it. But she was gone, and thinking about her hurt. “Okay, try this one,” Sokka said, pushing through the quiet that remembering Kya had created. “Earth and space, multiple choice. Right now, we’re at the lowest low tide. Is that a neap tide, a high tide--”

“Spring tide, Sokka,” Katara said. “Spring tides are the high highs and the low lows. Neaps are low highs and the high lows.”

“The boring ones,” Sokka supplied.

Katara smiled. There, that was what he was looking for. She was so serious, his sister. It had started with Kya’s death, but lately, between overstretching herself at school and spending every second of free time beyond that with Jet, it had felt like a while since he had had the chance to make her smile or laugh, just the two of them.

Still, it was February by the ocean. “Should we go in?” he said. “Big day tomorrow.”

Katara let out a long sigh, her eyes on the moon and the ocean. “Yeah,” she said. “We should get some rest.”

Unbidden, Sokka thought of Yue again-- the way he always did when it was night, and the moon was out, and he was wondering if she was okay. And then, in an odd moment of association, he wondered the same thing about Zuko. Why did they remind him of each other?

It was strange, the mental space they shared. He didn’t like having either of them in his head. Sokka skipped his last stone, hard as he could. He watched it zing across the water, arcing until he could no longer see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok just a heads up there may be a longer gap between me posting this and the next chapter. although the next chapter (REGIONALS, BABY!!!!) is getting kind of long so she might end up getting split in two... we'll see.
> 
> also it feels weird to have the Jasmine Dragon and Dunkin in the same universe but if i made the decision to set this in New England there can't not be a Dunks on every corner
> 
> big thanks to everyone who has commented/kudo-ed/etc. it does make a difference knowing if other people are having fun and enjoying this silly, angsty AU <3
> 
> ooh also one more side note, i just read both the Kyoshi novels and they are honestly fucking lit and i'm lightly obsessed with kyoshi right now. even though she's like, not that nice a person in this story. SUPER recommend.


	4. Elementary Reactions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regionals, part one. Tired teens take on all comers, with mixed results.
> 
> (Reminder that all Science Bowl questions are real and authored by the Department of Energy: https://science.osti.gov/wdts/nsb/Regional-Competitions/Resources/HS-Sample-Questions)

In absolutely unsurprising fashion, it was the most important morning of Sokka’s senior year and they were running late. First, Sokka’s alarm didn’t go off because in the post-beach angst from the previous night, he had inadvertently set his alarm for six in the evening, not the morning. So he woke up to an angry Katara, five minutes before their Absolutely Must Depart By This Time time, and barely had time to throw on his lucky Hawaiian shirt and do his wolftail before they had to book it out of the house. 

It didn’t help when they picked up an equally sleepy Suki, who had remembered their team’s paperwork, permission slips, and lucky fan, but had forgotten to put in her contact lenses. They had to double back two blocks from her house so she could run back in, only to come back with her hilariously dorky glasses because she’d lost one of the lenses in her haste to put it in.

And then there was a huge line in the Dunk’s drive thru, but Sokka knew they weren’t going to survive the morning without caffeine. Or at least, he wasn’t. Thank every god or lack thereof that Aang’s monk dad was driving him, and Toph’s mom was taking her. 

At least some Omashu parents were coming the competition. Sokka tried not to be whiny or sad about it. Suki’s folks were divorced, and bitterly. It made her so anxious to have them in the same room that she hadn’t told either of them that about the competition. And with third shift at the fishery, Hakoda was still at work when they left at quarter of seven. He wouldn’t even be home till nine in the morning. It would be selfish to want their dad there.

Regardless. Even with Aang and Toph’s parents taking them to the competition, the Sokka-Suki-Katara-mobile had barely enough time to make it to Ba Sing Se High School. So that was how, at 7:58, they screeched up to the school, Sokka steering the truck as close to the front entrance as he could legally get, yelling “Go! Go! Go!” at Suki.

Suki didn’t wait for the engine to stop before opening the passenger door and slamming out, paperwork and fan in hand. Katara followed right behind her, sprinting into the school, holding their coffees. The captains all needed to be present in the cafeteria by 8AM for the division draw, where they determined which teams they would round robin with before semis and finals.

Sokka leaned back in his seat and let out a long breath, turning the car back into the largely empty parking lot and letting his prized truck have a rest. “Thanks, girl,” he said, patting the dashboard after he pulled the keys out of the ignition.

He stretched, closed his eyes, visualized himself hitting the buzzer, answering questions. Then he grabbed his and Suki’s reusable water bottles (she’d left hers in her haste to get to the division draw), checked his hair and lucky Hawaiian shirt in the rearview mirror. Showtime, baby.

*

Ba Sing Se High School was huge, the district over from the much smaller Omashu Magnet School. It was the same location regionals had been held the last several years, so it was familiar to Sokka as he came in through the main doors, walked through the silent Saturday hallways with his shoes echoing against the linoleum, and turned left to find the huge cafeteria.

All the squads sat at different tables with their coaches and whatever parents had mustered the energy to come out at 8 on a Saturday, like weird little cliques that for some reason included adults drinking bad coffee from a carafe out of Styrofoam cups. Sokka spotted his team right away: Aang stood out in his omnipresent yellow and orange hoodie (and tattoos), and Toph’s cane and bright green T-shirt were equally eye-catching. Then there was Katara, who had taken pains to dress primly and properly in a white blouse, gray skirt, and blue sweater, but was joking and chattering with the rest of the motley crew. 

Not to mention Bumi, who had donned a full tweed suit, elbow patches and all, for the occasion. 

To Sokka’s relief, Suki was standing up at the front with the other captains, her hastily done car makeup (big red eye shadow she referred to as war paint) visible from across the room even behind her glasses. They stood in front of a tired-looking school official and an empty bracket printed on posterboard. (Science Bowl was not exactly the most glamorous of events.) 

So they had made it in time. Lit. Sokka breezed in, trying to project easy confidence, and sat down at the table with his friends. “Morning, y’all,” he said.

“You made it,” Aang said, bumping his fist.

“Barely. Wish I hadn’t had to sprint in this skirt,” Katara said.

“First rule of Science Bowl, dress for attack,” Sokka told her.

Toph’s mom was there, too, watching them all with a kind of bemused tolerance in her mint green suit. Sokka had met her a few times before. She was polite and tightly wound, a polar opposite of her daughter. The very first time Sokka dropped Toph off after practice, she had come out to the car and, through the window, asked Sokka how long he’d had his driver’s license (a year and a half), and how many seatbelts the truck had (five), and for his parents’ phone number (in case she ever wanted to check with a Trusted Parental Source on Toph’s whereabouts). 

Sitting next to Toph’s mom was Gyatso, as bald and tattooed as Aang, wearing his robes, looking around the room with interest. Aang’s dad (okay, not his bio dad, but the guy who had raised him) was a monk for some sort of Eastern sect that Sokka couldn’t pretend to know anything about. 

He knew the story from Katara: Aang had been dropped off as a newborn at a temple, and raised by the monks there. But a few years ago, a monsoon-- a historic one, an unprecedented one at the wrong time of year-- had flooded the temple and the village surrounding it. Taken unawares, many of the monks had died, and the temple itself had been destroyed. After the devastating flood, the rest of the monks had scattered to other temples or even countries. Aang and Gyatso had come to the States, the latter deciding that Aang should have the opportunity to learn more about the world and what happened beyond the walls of the monastery.

Aang didn’t like to talk about his past much. Katara was the only one who had gotten him to talk about it. He didn’t want to be treated like some tragedy, he wanted to goof around with friends and learn as much as he could. Sometimes it was easy to forget how personal his obsession with climate science and energy tech was. He’d seen the effects of climate change firsthand. He’d lost family.

But, Sokka reflected, at least he had Gyatso, whom he adored-- it was easy to tell in the way the two exchanged giggles as Gyatso swiped Bumi’s half-eaten donut out from under him as he let out an enormous yawn.

“All right, everyone,” a tired looking school official wearing a bizarre tie with a goofy, grinning bear, stood by the captains next to the empty bracket. “I’m Vice Principal Bosco. Welcome to this year’s Northeast Regional Science Bowl. We’re going to get started with the division draw, here.”

Sokka looked up at the group of 12 or 13 captains getting ready for the division draw, looking for the telltale maroon blazer of Sozin Academy. Where was Zuko? Instead, the girl that looked like a younger, crueler version of him stood amongst the captains in her blazer and a perfectly crisp blouse and skirt.

Trying to appear casual, Sokka looked around at the other teams, clustered at the lunch tables with various parents and adults. There-- there were the Sozin Academy kids in their uniforms. There was Zuko, with the other two girls from last year, and a tall, imposing man Sokka remembered as their coach. 

Weird. Sokka had figured Zuko would be captaining for Sozin again.

“We have two divisions of six this year. Each captain will draw which division their team will play in. The competition will start with a round robin-- every team will play every team in their division. After that, we’ll split into our placement brackets... hang on...” The harried man flipped through papers on his clipboard. “Right. The top bracket will be in contention for the two spots to nationals; at the end of the bracket the teams with the best records will take those spots. Tiebreakers are listed in your pamphlets.” He mopped his brow, glancing at his watch. “Schedules and locations are in there, too. All right, we’re already late. Time to draw pools.”

The captains lined up to draw little slips of paper from a cardboard box. The Sozin captain had wormed her way to the front of the line. “A2,” she said to the woman who was standing next to the bracket with a big marker, to associate the team names to the bracket.

When Suki came up near the end, Sokka put his thumb and finger in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Go Suki!” he called. Several heads in the cafeteria turned. (Including Zuko’s, his brain pointed out unhelpfully.)

Grinning, shaking her head, Suki drew B5. So they were in Pool B. Sokka mentally ran through the other schools in their pool. A few he remembered from last year. Nobody unduly threatening. Ba Sing Se High was a big enough school that they tended to have a solid team, and Sozin was Sozin, of course, but they were both in Pool A. Looking good.

“All right, everyone. Best of luck today. First round starts in ten minutes. Lunch will be provided at noon. Please stick to the schedule, we’re already running behind.” Vice Principal Bosco adjusted his bear tie.

Suki came back to the table, already flipping through her pamphlet to find B5’s schedule. “All right, y’all,” she said. “We’re in Room 114 to start. Let’s hit the road. Sokka, give us a battle plan on the way?”

And they were off.

*

First round, versus Si Wong Charter High. Sokka’s battle plan: “Don’t remember much about these guys, but we’re going to start solid and calm. Let’s not get crazy with interruptions until they show us that we need to worry about speed on the buzzer. Anything to add, co-captain?”

“Let’s fucking do this,” Suki said, as she always did. Out of the corner of his eye, in the back of the classroom where the parents and coaches sat, Sokka saw Toph’s mom’s eyes grow wide at the profanity. He had to smile.

They sat in their usual seats: Sokka in Seat 1, Suki in the captain’s seat, Katara in Seat 2, Aang in Seat 3, Toph sitting as alternate to start. Captains were in the middle to more easily hear bonus discussions, and the judges used the numbering system to acknowledge the players when they buzzed in on the question. Sokka felt a little thrill. It was strange coming back here as a senior, as a leader on his team, as someone confidently taking Seat 1 instead of splitting it with Suki or ceding it to someone older.

The Si Wong charter kids sitting on the Team A side of the room looked tired, their captain fighting back a yawn. They would have had an even further drive than Omashu. Sokka was tired from being up late the previous morning, sure, but the morning’s adrenaline had him feeling focused and wired.

The judge was a lady named Mrs. Hama who introduced herself as a Biology teacher here at Ba Sing Se. She had a real… mad scientist energy about her. In less a kooky way than Bumi, and more a way that suggested that she would happily take any of the contestants apart to see what was inside them. It gave Sokka the heebie-jeebies.

Still, they were here, they were ready. “Question one,” she read. “Math, short answer If all of the prime factors of 444, including multiple occurences, are added, how much greater will the result be than that for 222?”

The tiniest pause, then Suki and Sokka hit their buzzers at the same time-- Sokka with his signature slam, Suki just a touch of the button. Hers lit up.

Ms. Hama acknowledged her. “B Captain.”

“Two,” Suki said confidently.

“Correct,” Ms. Hama said. “Bonus, short answer. Two circles with radii of 3 inches and 1 inch have the same center…”

Sokka wrote it all down, his brain already pulling up all the formulae about circles he knew. They were here. They were doing it. Today was the day.

They ripped through questions. The only question the Si Wong team got access to was an Earth Science toss-up (something about desert biomes that Sokka had hesitated a little too long on, waiting to see if anyone on his team might have a better answer).

By halftime eight minutes later, they were up by forty points. Sokka felt like he was coming up for air. He had forgotten how short these rounds were, how fast the questions went by when you didn’t stop to heckle each other each round. They huddled up together during the two-minute half. “Toph, you get in here,” Sokka said. “I’ll sit this one.”

She nodded, blew her hair out of her face, and cracked her knuckles. “Thanks, Captain Boomerang.”

If anything, Omashu came out even hotter in the second half than the first. Si Wong didn’t have a chance. Toph, like an old pro, got the jump on the other team on both Earth Science questions on the buzzer, though neither team got the answer to which star is the brightest in the constellation Orion. (Sokka was more or less the only one on the team who knew any Astronomy.) Aang, despite looking nervous, settled in in the second half as their lead grew and even helped Suki out on a Physics bonus without Sokka next to her.

Sokka felt himself glowing with pride at his ragged band of misfits. They had worked so hard. They deserved to be here. The final question-- not that it mattered, they were so far ahead-- was Biology. “Short answer,” said Mrs. Hama. “Glucagon is primarily manufactured in the alpha cells of what human organ?”

As soon as she uttered the word “Glucagon”, Sokka knew Katara, who was sitting in the B1 seat now, had this one in the bag. But it was the Si Wong captain’s buzzer who lit up. He waited to be acknowledged. “The liver?” he said.

“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect.” Spooky Lady judge reset the buzzers. Immediately, Katara’s was lit. “B1?”

“Pancreas,” she said confidently.

“Correct. Bonus, short answer…”

Aang reached over Suki and patted Katara on the back, smiling. She smiled back at him. They didn’t get the bonus (it was a complicated one, something about DNA ligase), but they didn’t need it. With that, they had notched one victory in the books.

Suki shook hands with a slightly overwhelmed looking Si Wong captain, and they both signed the match results. “I can take this back to the caf, y’all,” Suki said. “We’re in room 106 next. Meet there in ten.”

“That was very exciting!” Gyatso said, coming over to the group.

Mrs. Beifong came along behind him, a little hesitant, but a smile on her face. She put a hand on Toph’s shoulder. “I have to say, you all know your stuff.”

As they began the journey to the next classroom (thank God they were leaving spooky lady behind), Sokka couldn’t resist a little coaching. “Katara, you knew that pancreas one,” he said. “Don’t overthink it. When you know you know, just hit that buzzer.”

“Their bio guy was hemorrhaging points, Sokka,” she said. “I wanted to wait till I was certain, and even if I got beat, I didn’t think he’d be a threat.”

“Okay, well, that’s not going to be the case with every team,” he said to her. “With some of these teams, _pretty sure_ is gonna have to be good enough.”

“I know, Sokka,” she said. “This isn’t my first competition. And you’re the one who said not to go crazy with interruptions this round, Mr. Battle Plans.” Rolling her eyes, she caught up to Aang and Gyatso as they walked toward the hallway.

He shrugged. Fair point. “Mr. Battle Plans,” said Toph. “I like that one.”

“Mr. Battle Plans is my father,” Sokka said. “Call me Sokka.”

“I will not,” said Toph, her mom walking close next to her, like she didn’t trust her to be able to walk down the hallway herself. 

They walked down the hall together, crossing paths with other teams streaming in and out of classrooms as rounds started and ended, like schools of fish swimming among one another. Up ahead, Sokka saw the Sozin kids, moving as one, blazers standing out among the more casual schools.

That’d be later. For now, they had further butts to kick in their pool.

*  
Round two, against the West Lake High School Serpents. Their new judge was named Mr. Ganjin, a fastidious-looking man in a white blazer. 

Sokka had no idea what to expect from this team. They all wore matching letterman jackets with serpents on the back, so their school probably had money. But they hadn’t been in Omashu’s pool the past couple of years. “All right, y’all,” he said when it was time to give a battle plan. “Lot of unknowns here. Just focus on the questions, write down notes as the judge reads bonuses, and if there are any strategy adjustments, me and Suki’ll let you know at halftime.” He glanced at her. “Anything to add?”

“Let’s fucking do this,” she said for the second time that day. This time, Toph’s mom pressed her lips together tightly, but didn’t look surprised.

The match was a good one. Aang sat out first, Katara second. The Serpents put up more of a fight than Si Wong had. Sokka came out strong with a multiple choice interruption about Hubble’s Law. Suki came to Toph’s rescue on an Earth and Space bonus question about a crater lake that she happened to have read a wikipedia article about recently. 

The Serpents were fast, but not infallible by any means, and though Sokka’s team missed a few more bonuses than he would have liked, they were mostly in control of the buzzer. A solid victory.

He took a turn running their scoresheet back to the cafeteria. Casually, he glanced at the bracket that Vice Principal Bosco was filling out, just to see what was going on in the other pool. Sozin Academy, undefeated so far.

He nodded grimly. That was to be expected. Back to his own pool.

*

By Round 3, Sokka was starting to feel the exhaustion of the previous night settle in. Damn, why had he been up so late angsting about Zuko? Why had he dragged Katara into it too? They were back in the same classroom with Mr. Ganjin for this round. The students that walked in for their match, surrounded by parents, were from Whaletail Island Homeschooling Collective. The captain for Whaletail Island had gigantic pigtails and introduced herself to Suki as Meng. 

Sokka suppressed a groan. Last year, these students hadn’t been particularly aggressive on the buzzer, but they had had the best rate of bonus completion he’d ever seen outside of Sozin Academy. 

The team huddled around him for a battle plan, Sokka pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to shake off the urge to yawn. “Right. Last year, these guys weren’t fast, but they were smart. I want us to stay in control of the board. No interruptions unless you’re confident, but I want to see us first on the buzzer otherwise. Even if we’re just _pretty sure_.” He glanced at Katara, who rolled her eyes. “I think the expected value will pay off. Now Suki, what you got to say?”

She grinned, even though Sokka could see dark circles under her eyes behind the glasses she hated. “I got to say, let’s fucking do this.”

By now, Toph’s mom seemed used to the profanity, looking at her phone at what was undoubtedly some important business email.

Toph sat out for the first half this round. Sokka drummed his pen against his desk as Mr. Ganjin opened the folder for the round, one hand resting on his buzzer. “Question one, Physics, short answer. What particular type of Raman scattering occurs when the emitted photon is of higher wavelength than the incident one?”

Hands hit buzzers. Sokka had been sure he’d gotten it, but it was Meng’s buzzer who lit up. “Stokes,” she said after being acknowledged.

“That’s correct,” said Mr. Ganjin.

While he read the Whaletail homeschoolers their bonus, Suki held out her fist to him. “C’mon, we got this,” she whispered.

He gave her a first bump back. No use getting shaken.

Unlike the first games that had flown, this one was starting to feel slower. It felt like they had been at this school forever. They got the next two questions, but only one bonus. They edged toward halftime, and went into it with a small lead.

During the half, Suki said, “Come on, everyone, let’s all take a breath together.” They did, and somehow, it helped a little with the anxiety Sokka was starting to feel in his stomach. He saw Gyatso smiling at their little group huddle, next to Bumi, asleep, snoring gently. The sights gave him some courage.

They’d had three bio questions in the first half, so Katara sat out the second half, even though it made Sokka a little nervous not having his sister’s steady hand against the homeschoolers. Still, with a four-question streak near the end, ending with Aang pulling some statistics about cellulosic feedstocks from seemingly nowhere, Omashu took the match.

They all looked at each other, some of them sweaty, others breathing a little harder. Sokka both. He sweated like a pig when he was focused. “How many more matches before lunch?” Toph asked, finally, breaking the silence.

“Two,” said Suki, who’d been twisting her hair so aggressively around her finger during the match that hair was falling out of its topknot. “Here, I brought some walnuts for us to share. We’re going back to room 114.” She glanced at her watch. “Woof. Next match in fifteen. Sokka, you want to run our scoresheet to the caf?” 

He nodded, relieved to be standing, moving, something to relieve the exhaustion weighing him down. “See you in a minute.”

In the cafeteria, he paused to grab a cup of the crappy coffee, now lukewarm, and looked at the bracket. Sozin, like them, still 3-0. He glanced at their own pool. Round 4 in Pool B was against Foggy Swamp Regional High, a school from up north in kind of a hick town. Still, they were the only other team in Pool B that was undefeated so far.

“Good for them,” he said out loud. Too bad they were about to go down. Vice Principal Bosco, whom Sokka had mentally christened as Mr. Bear-Tie, looked at him in bemusement from his plastic chair next to the bracket.

Sokka handed in the signed scorecard. “What room is B5 in next?” he asked the guy. The number Suki had told him had already dribbled out of his brain. It was too occupied with PV = nRT and f = ma to remember silly things like classroom numbers.

After consulting his clipboard for what felt like eons, the school official found his schedule. “114,” Mr. Bear-Tie said.

Shit. That was the creepy Hama lady again. “Thank you, my good sir,” said Sokka, and turned to leave.

On the way out of the cafeteria, he saw Zuko, coming in, scoresheet in hand. Their gazes met each other, locked together for one long, weird moment, bringing Sokka back to the coffee shop, back to years past, back to _fucking peasant_.

Dammit. Not today. Sokka ducked past him, moving fast now. He had a team to find, a battle plan deliver. He’d see Zuko soon enough. He just needed to beat enough teams to get there.

*

Sokka was so distracted by all this that he took a wrong turn on the way back to 114, and almost missed the start of the match. He was running by the time he got to the classroom, two minutes to spare by the clock on his phone. He opened the door and booked it over to his team huddled on one side of the room.

The door slammed shut behind him. Mrs. Hama gave him a dirty look, the kind like maybe she’d turn him into a puppet if she could. He shuddered, then turned his focus to his team, joining the huddle.

“Where you been? Thought I was gonna have to take over as co-captain,” Toph said.

“Just doing really important things,” Sokka said, panting a little.

“You got a battle plan for us or we just doing this?” Suki said.

Sokka glanced over at the Foggy Swamp guys. It was hard to tell if they were sleepy, or maybe a little stoned. “Battle plan. Let’s go out there and win this one. Anything to add?”

Suki shrugged, clapped her hands together. “Let’s do it, y’all. ”

Not their best work, or their usual call and response. But it would have to do. They filed over to their seats, Aang sitting out first, hopping down into the seat between Gyatso and Bumi. 

Ms. Hama looked both teams over, cleared her throat, and without preamble, started the round timer. “Question one. Energy, short answer. What refinery process is used to separate components of petroleum based on their boiling points?”

 _Fuck._ Why had they subbed out Aang? Bad luck. Sokka buzzed, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Anyway, one of the Foggy Swamp guys, the one in the captain’s seat wearing a big green bucket hat even though it was indoors, had already beaten him to it. “Fractional distillation,” he said, a slight drawl to his voice. He was correct.

They got the bonus right, too, with a little talking and giggling amongst themselves. Sokka and Suki exchanged glances, re-steeled themselves.

“Question two. Earth and space, multiple choice. Spectroscopic binaries are easiest to detect when W, the stars are of the same spectral class, X, the orbit is viewed edge-on, Y, The orbit is wide, Z, The orbit is viewed face-on... B1.”

Sokka was between X and Z, and he knew no one on his team was going to come close on this. “Z,” he said, crossing his fingers under the table.

“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect,” Mrs. Hama said. “A3?”

“X,” the tall, skinny guy said.

“Correct,” Mrs. Hama said.

“Fuck,” whispered Sokka softly to himself. Mrs. Hama glared at him. “Language warning for Team B.”

Suki slapped Sokka on the wrist as Mrs. Hama read the Foggy Swamp boys their bonus. They got that one, too.

The half didn’t go any better from there. The Omashu team started clawing their way back from their early deficit, but these stoner-looking guys were a lot better than they looked at Science Bowl. It didn’t help that three Energy questions-- three!-- came up with Aang on the bench. By the time they ended the half, they were down by thirty-six. At least three full questions with bonuses.

Suki’s face was flushed, sweaty. She took off her glasses, cleaned them on her soft T-shirt. She leaned over to Sokka as the two minute break timer started. “F,” she whispered.

Sokka just nodded. “Should we sub in Aang?”

She hesitated, looking between Toph and Aang. “Maybe they already asked all the Energy questions.”

It was a fair point. The question topics were technically supposed to be random, but you didn’t usually see more than three or four in a given round. Still, in a tight match like this, Sokka relied more on experience than specialization. “Let’s get him in,” he said.

Suki nodded. “Aang, you’re up. Toph, nice work.”

On the other side of the room, the Foggy Swamp guys appeared to be looking at a cool cloud formation out the window. Dammit, thought Sokka. The Omashu team did best when they were loose and having fun, and right now, the only people having fun in the room were their opponents.

The second half didn’t go much better than the first. Not only had Suki been right-- not a single Energy question for Aang, but several Earthy questions that would have been right up Toph’s alley (Sokka cursed himself)-- but it was clear that no one on Omashu was firing on all cylinders. Suki, twitchy and nervous, buzzed in on a Chemistry multiple choice about London dispersion forces and froze, her mind blanking out which letter corresponded to the correct answer. Sokka, determined to make up for it, buzzed over Katara on a question about plant hormones, which he got wrong. (He always mixed up fucking auxin and gibberelin.)

Even Bumi was awake and watching the slow-motion train wreck.

And then, near the end-- finally, an Energy question. “Multiple choice. Which of the following is an isotope that has attracted recent interest in terms of developing a new generation of cleaner, proliferation-resistant nuclear power? W, Uranium-235, X, Thorium-232-- interrupt.”

“X,” said Aang, then his face went white. He hadn’t waited to be acknowledged by his seat, B3.

“Blurt penalty,” said Mrs. Hama smoothly. “Four points to Team A. Question will be re-read.”

Aang stared down at the desk. Katara put her arm around him, hugged him close for a moment, before letting go. That was the round-- there were questions left, sure, but it was out of reach point-wise.

Katara was the only one who got any of the remaining questions, and when time ran out, she turned toward the rest of her team as the Foggy Swamp guys celebrated with high-fives all around. “Wow,” she said.

Sokka was still staring in disbelief. “Damn,” he said.

“Not our best,” Katara said. She had a real gift for the deadpan understatement.

“I’m so sorry, you guys,” Aang said, pulling his hoodie all the way over his head and pulling the strings until it was so tight they couldn’t see his face.

Sokka glanced at Suki. It was hard letting go of the easy vision he had had of them winning their pool and moving onto bracket play. Now they’d need to win their next match to even make the champion bracket. This was where they needed Suki’s calming presence to steer the ship.

“Aang, it’s okay,” Suki said, her sentences coming in short, clipped bursts. “Not your fault. Bad luck on a lot of those. Look, we’re going to be fine, okay?” Hands trembling, she looked down at her schedule. “Everyone just… take a few minutes. Chill out. I’ll be right back. Next match in ten minutes, back in 106. We’ll regroup in five.”

Shoulders perfectly straight and rigid, she walked out of the classroom.

Sokka watched her leave. He’d seen that look on her face before. He looked back around at his dejected teammates, at Bumi walking over. At least their coach was there to support them, in whatever weird Bumi way he could. “I’ll be right back, too,” he said. “C’mon, y’all, heads high. We’re fine. Bumi, you got any good stories for these guys? Or snacks?”

Bumi stroked his beard, looked up at the fluorescent lights. Building suspense. “Well. I’m certain I must’ve told you about the time the power went out in the reptile lab in the dead of winter and I had to snuggle up with a boa constrictor to keep it warm?”

Aang looked up, though he didn’t emerge from his sweatshirt hood. “I haven’t heard that one.”

“Me neither,” said Toph.

“It’s a good one,” Katara said, smiling and digging into the snack bag in Suki's backpack. She glanced at Sokka, tilted her head toward the door. He nodded back, relieved for Katara’s ability to keep her shit together when everyone else was reeling, and left on the hunt for Suki.

It didn’t take long to find her. He looked left and right down the hallway, and-- there. Her green high tops, poking out of an alcove between banks of red lockers. He found her sitting, knees drawn up to her chest, hands playing with the Kyoshi fan.

He sat down beside her, not saying anything. Suki felt things hard, but she didn’t like making a big deal of crying. But when she let out one small choked sob, he couldn’t resist pulling her in tight for a side hug. “Sorry,” she said in a very small voice. “This is dumb.”

“You know what’s dumb?” Sokka said. “Fucking plant hormones. And London dispersion forces.”

"Sorry I blanked out," Suki said.

"Sorry I got way too buzzer-happy. And took Toph out just in time for all the Earth Science." Sokka leaned his head back against the cold bricks of the wall, letting it thunk a little.

Suki wiped her eyes under the thick-rimmed black glasses. “Kyoshi would have gotten the London dispersion question,” she said, voice trembling a little. "And the plant hormones."

“Kyoshi was fucking insane and also, I’m sorry, kind of a dick,” Sokka said. “I pick you over her, every time.”

Suki made a face. She had hero worshipped Kyoshi so completely that she had claimed every crumb of responsibility for their breakup, dismissing criticisms of her at face value. “It’s just… she never would have put us in this position,” she said. “Losing to fucking Foggy Swamp. If we play like that next round we're not gonna even make it out of our pool.”

“Honestly, those Foggy Swamp guys put up a good fight,” Sokka said. “Luck of the draw. And anyway, dude, unlike when Kyoshi was captaining, we win as a team, and we lose as a team. It’s not your fault.”

Suki sighed. She fished in her pocket for a tissue. “Sorry,” she said again. “This is not helping anything. I just needed to go feel worthless for a minute, regroup, and then we’ll come back out for some ass kicking.”

Sokka couldn’t stand it sometimes. “Suki, I just… god dammit. I just want to go find anyone who’s ever made you feel worthless and just… slap them in the face with a cactus.”

She let out a slightly garbled laugh. “Thanks, Sokka. I know, I know. You got a copy of the bracket?”

“You know it,” he said, and pulled out the schedule. Not that it made much of a difference-- they both knew the drill, they had to win from here on out if they wanted to make nationals. At best, they'd come in second in their pool, which meant they’d see Sozin first in crossovers.

Suki let out a long, shaky breath, her voice returning to a somewhat normal tone as she reverted back to where she was comfortable: talking Science Bowl strategy with her co-captain. “If they’re anything like they were last year, Bored Math Girl is going to be pretty unbeatable.”

“We’re gonna have to go hard on them on Bio and Earth, I think,” Sokka said. “Zuko and Scary Girl are pretty good on Chem and Physics.”

Suki nodded. “We’ll sit Aang first, see if we can get Katara to come out hot on bio against Happy Girl.”

“Roger that. We probably want her in the whole time." Sokka thought back to last year’s competition, about the pile of medical textbooks and cell bio primers stacked in Katara’s bedroom. “I know she wants a rematch of last year.”

Suki looked at him, bonked her head against his in a gentle and affectionate gesture. “I know you do, too,” she said. She wiped her face, adjusted the glasses (Sokka honestly thought they were adorable, though Suki would smack him if he ever told her that), and took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. “One thing at a time. Pool play first. Let’s fucking do this.”

“Amen, sister,” Sokka said, and pulled her back to her feet. They walked down the hallway together, arm in arm. Ready to face their last few matches, however they would go, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my sweet jesus i can't believe i ever thought this was going to be one chapter. this part is like barely shy of 6000 words. the good news is, the next part is almost all the way written-- i figured it would be nicer to update now with one chapter and update again in three or four days with another chapter, instead of waiting like two weeks for a ten thousand word monstrosity.
> 
> also, where i split it means there's not too much zukka in this chapter (don't worry there are still plenty of longing glances), but also from here on out we're pretty much full steam ahead on the zuko parts of this story. some fun slash angsty stuff ahead--- i hope, if you're reading, that you look forward to it, and that you enjoyed this chapter that just wantonly mixes every ATLA one-off character and location and scenes with a bunch of science questions. this is real fanfiction soup. yolo. (did i turn bosco the bear into an overworked vice principal because i couldn't remember the earth king's name? i'll never tell! but yes.)
> 
> oh also i know it isn't canon to not kill off gyatso but aang's backstory in this made me rl sad and i had to keep gyatso alive OKAY
> 
> wow all right time for sleep. thanks to everyone who's been commenting, it really does keep me goin knowing a few people out there enjoying this silly, sincere lil AU.


	5. Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regionals, part dos: championship bracket edition. An unexpected apology leads to some intense feeling. Gyatso and Bumi are bros for life.

“Energy, multiple choice. What would be the total kinetic energy of an object rolling down a ramp with no slippage? W, half MV squared, X, half I omega squared, Y, half MV squared plus half I omega squared, Z-- interrupt, B1.”

Sokka took in a deep breath, checking and double checking his memory, hands trembling slightly. “Y,” he said.

“Correct,” Mr. Ganjin said. “Bonus, short answer. What general type of nuclear reactor generates more fissile...”

Sokka almost collapsed in relief, tuning out the bonus. He’d buzzed before he’d been sure, but anything rolling down a ramp had rotational and linear kinetic energy. He’d just been waiting for the option that smashed the two together… and that had gotten them the last question of the round. 

They’d been up by a bonus--aka, barely-- and with this toss-up, they’d locked in a win over Hira’a High School, a public school further inland. The match had been messy, not their best, still with some of the sloppiness of the morning. But with it, they’d scrapped out their final win in pool play, leaving them with a 4-1 record and a spot in the championship bracket. Still in contention for nationals.

“Sokka, you agree?” Suki asked, bringing him back to the present. She and Aang had been talking through the bonus, leaning back in their seats so they could talk with Katara between them.

“Missed the question,” Sokka said, still a little shaky with relief.

Suki took it in stride, cool as a cucumber. She had more than recovered from her minor freakout now that they were back in game. “What was it, Aang?”

“Breeder reactor,” he said. “They’re super cool.”

Suki repeated that answer to the judge (omitting Aang’s commentary), and they got their bonus. “Fuck, yes!” Toph said. She’d been subbed out for the second half, sitting between her mom and Gyatso. The monk had watched the match with a calm expression and a straight spine, but his eyes flickered back and forth between the contestants and buzzers like he was watching a tennis match. Now, he let out a wide smile, showing that he agreed with Toph’s assessment.

“Language, Toph!” her mom snapped. To her credit, Toph’s mom had been following the matches closely too. Sokka had seen a small prim grin, all she allowed herself, come over her face whenever Toph got an answer right.

Mr. Ganjin nodded emphatically. “Omashu, the round’s over, but you’re going to need to watch that.”

Katara let out a heavy sigh. “We’re on it. Thanks, Mr. Ganjin.”

Sokka was too busy reveling in relief to be concerned about a little swearing after the match. He’d bitten his tongue on several F-words during this round, not willing to give up another swearing penalty. This round had been closer than he wanted, but even if it hadn’t been particularly elegant, it was good to see them regaining a little confidence as their scrappy selves. “It doesn’t have to look good,” he said to Suki. “Just has to get the job done.”

“We out here,” she replied, snapping her fan open and fanning her warm face.

“You know what this means?” Aang said in excitement, scooching his chair out and swiveling around so he was sitting on it backward.

Katara smiled. “We made the championship bracket?”

“Oh, right-- well, that, but I was gonna say, lunch!”

Sokka’s stomach growled in response. “Ah, lunch,,” he said. “It seemed a distant dream for so long… but lunch… my love… I return to you.”

Suki smiled. “All right, we did what we needed here. Let’s get lunch, take a break, and we’ll regroup for bracket play.”

After five straight rounds in a row, lunch was a mercy. Teams got an hour. Lunches were provided for the students and for sale for the parents, slightly soggy but perfectly serviceable sandwiches from the cafeteria, with a bag of chips each. The cafeteria echoed with mingled voices and wrappers as teams discussed the rounds in animated voices, or ate their sandwiches with dull dejected faces.

Toph’s mom took one look at the sandwiches, wrinkled her nose, and drove out to pick up “some real food” for herself, Gyatso, and Bumi. The latter two went outside together for “a breath of fresh air.” Sokka was a little worried that the two of them were going to team up and go rob a bank or something, but it was at least fun to see the two geezers getting along. Maybe they were going to smoke weed and play Pai Sho or whatever old guys did together.

Aang and Toph had Fritos in their lunch sacks, while Sokka and Suki had Lays. “Yo Aang, I’ll go half and half with you on chips,” Sokka said, his mouth full of turkey and cheese sandwich. “C’mon, that’s a good deal.”

Aang was busy eying Katara’s Doritos. “I think I can do better,” he said. He started to make a grab for her chips.

Katara was busy texting. Without looking away from her phone, she slapped Aang’s hand away. “Hey, while the adults are away… Jet’s parents are out of town this weekend. You guys wanna have a party tonight?”

Suki and Sokka exchanged glances. “Maybe we should wait to see how we do in the top bracket before planning on a party,” Sokka said, his mouth full of chips. “Seems like a jinx waiting to happen.”

“Plus we’re all gonna be exhausted,” Suki pointed out.

“You guys are no fun at all,” said Toph.

“Yeah, where’s the confidence?” Katara said. “We got this. I’m feeling good.”

“Plus if we do lose, we can commiserate,” said Aang. “As a team.”

“With Jet?” Sokka asked, wrinkling his nose. Katara elbowed him in the gut.

Suki checked her watch. “Well, maybe. Listen, y’all, we’re starting up again in like twenty minutes. We can talk about happy party or sad party afterward. We’ve got Sozin next, and after that-- well, what happens after depends how we do and how Foggy Swamp vs. Ba Sing Se goes. It’s time to start getting focused.”

“Now would be the time to pee,” Katara added helpfully, the voice of experience.

Sokka grabbed his almost empty Nalgene. “I’m gonna fill my water. Anyone else need a refill at the fountain while I’m at it?”

Four water bottles were tossed in his general direction. He sighed as Toph’s missed wildly and clattered to the ground, attracting gazes from the other tables. His neck heated up when he saw heads turning at the Sozin table, but resolutely, he ignored it.

He gathered the refillable bottles into his arms. “Back in a sec,” he told his team, and went out into the hall through the double doors held open by their doorstops. He was pretty sure he’d seen a fountain earlier-- there. Way nicer than the ones at Omashu Magnet, too, with one of those vertical faucets for filling bottles.

He set the first one down to fill, looked around the hallway at a slightly dusty trophy case and a poster advertising some school play, _Love Amongst the Dragons_. Ugh. Omashu had done that one his freshman year, and it had been a hot mess. Based on the poster, though, this one looked to have higher production value. Ba Sing Se was a bigger school than Omashu, and definitely had better funding. They’d be seeing their team soon, a team with probably better coaching and more money-- and they’d have to beat both them and Sozin to make nationals. And maybe even play Foggy Swamp again in a tiebreaker if those guys continued to dominate.

Nerves were starting to creep in. He remembered the last time he’d been wandering these hallways. He was facing Zuko soon. It was his last chance. He had to beat him, had to win. He mentally flipped through the laws of thermodynamics, a nervous tic, a reassuring litany.

Soft footsteps behind him, and a quiet, slightly gravelly voice. “Hey.”

Sokka’s stomach twisted. Okay… he was facing Zuko now. He glanced over his shoulder. There he was, his nemesis, walking down the hallway, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his blazer. “Hi,” Sokka said, stupidly.

Zuko’s face was tight, nervous. “Uh… Zuko here,” he said. “I don’t know if, uh… I ever actually introduced myself.”

Sokka felt his jaw set. “I know who you are,” he said. He glanced back toward the cafeteria. He saw Suki looking at them, questions in her eyes. The Sozin Academy girls were deep in conversation, but the one who looked like a crueller, female Zuko watched them, too, eyes narrow.

“Yeah, that... makes sense,” Zuko said, one hand going to the back of his neck. “Look, can I talk to you for a sec?”

Sokka leaned against the wall, pretending to appear unbothered. He even managed to avoid knocking over the water bottle when he retrieved it from the water fountain, swapping it out for the next one. “What’s up?”

Zuko stayed silent for a long moment. No hoodie this year, just a spotless maroon blazer with the crest of Sozin Academy on the lapel, tie tied in a perfect half Windsor (or whatever the fuck kind of knot it was, Sokka hadn’t worn a tie since his mother’s funeral and Gran Gran had tied that one for him). 

He pushed his tousled hair out of his face, fingers brushing across his scar. Finally, he started talking, low and breathless, like he had to get this all out before he lost his nerve. “Listen, uh… I assume you remember, I said something really bad to you a couple years ago.”

Sokka shrugged, trying to pretend the words _fucking peasant fucking peasant fucking peasant_ weren’t rolling around his brain like marbles in a jar, the way they had been since he saw Zuko at the Jasmine Dragon three days ago. 

Zuko continued. “It wasn’t just bad, it was… uh… it was pretty inexcusable. Just unbelievably rude. I was going through some stuff at the time, but that wasn’t an excuse to just… go off like that on someone who asked if I was okay.” He stared at the ground.

Sokka realized he, himself, wasn’t breathing, and let out a shaky breath. He thought of Coulomb’s law: the smaller the distance between two charged particles, the greater the electrical force between them. He and Zuko were standing close, so close, and the electricity between them felt like it could knock out power to the whole school. The hallway was quiet, except for the rest of Zuko’s words, spoken low and quickly.

“I still think about it, and feel really bad. I shouldn’t have said it. And when I saw you the other day, I just…” He raked his hand through his hair. “Anyway. You don’t have to forgive me or anything, but… I just wanted to apologize, because you deserve an apology for what I said.” Zuko met his eyes for one brief moment, then turned back toward the cafeteria.

Sokka wasn’t sure what had done it-- was it the sincerity of the words, the quiet force with which they were delivered? Or was it the eyes that had flickered up to meet his, full of vulnerability and nerves? Was it the relief of knowing that he wasn’t the only person that had replayed the startled hurt of that moment over and over again? Or was it just that he was pretty sure that that apology had been agonized over, and carefully delivered, and damn near perfect, the same way Zuko had delivered the Ideal Gas Law word for word at last year’s competition?

Whatever it was, it had caused something involuntary and immediate in Sokka to forgive him, like a muscle spasm, like a reflex. So he grabbed Zuko’s arm before he could turn. “Hey,” he said.

Zuko flinched, but accepted the contact. “Yeah?”

“Uh… thanks for saying that. And I hope things are better now,” Sokka said, meeting Zuko’s eyes, instinctively keeping his voice and facial expression as gentle as he could, this time determined for the other boy not to look away. He really did have beautiful eyes, the palest brown ringed with gold, even with one painfully squinted by the scar.

To Sokka’s shock, the barest hint of a crooked smile flickered across Zuko’s face. “They’re… not great. But better,” he said.

“Well… good,” Sokka said, wishing he had something better to say, wishing he had time to ask him questions, learn just what had made the anger in the boy boil over and splash him that day, what _not great but better_ meant.

Suki came out of the cafeteria. “Sokka, we’re gonna head to the classroom in a sec,” she said, her voice bright and overly normal, like she was pretending that this was not a weird moment she was walking in on.

Belatedly, Sokka realized he was still holding Zuko’s arm. He dropped it. “Uh… good luck today,” he said to the other boy. “Except when you play us. Then bad luck.”

Zuko searched his face, like he was unsure how to respond.

“Joke,” clarified Sokka, hoping he didn't seem like an asshole after Zuko had made himself so vulnerable.

Zuko nodded. “Right,” he said, and smiled again, that same quirked little smile. Seeing it on Zuko’s face, caused by him, made Sokka feel like he’d earned something, something important. “Same to you, then,” he said, some of the tension gone from his shoulder. “See you soon.”

He turned away. Sokka watched him all the way back toward his team’s table, unable to believe what had just happened. All three of the Sozin girls were staring, like Zuko had just grown an extra head or something. 

“Dammit, Suki, why’d you interrupt?” he asked, filling the last bottle.

“I thought I was saving you from that asshole!” she said, helping to screw the bottle tops back on.

Sokka was still reeling from the intensity of that apology. “He just apologized for the Peasant Incident. I… um, I think he might not actually be that much of an asshole.”

She wrinkled her nose, snapped her fingers in front of her face. “C’mon, dude, hardest match in a few. I don’t care if Zuko’s an angel fallen from heaven. I need you focused. You good?”

Sokka took a long sip out of his water and screwed on the top, a goofy grin spreading over his face. “I’m good,” he said, and in that moment, it really, really felt like he was.

*

After various bathroom and car trips, the Omashu team reconvened and left the cafeteria together, leaving Toph’s mom, Gyatso, and Bumi to enjoy the Panera salads she had brought them. Suki wanted to get to their classroom early to mentally prepare and, as she put it, “take ownership over the space.”

They got there with ten minutes to spare, yet somehow, the Sozin kids were already in there, sitting silently lined up in their seats on the A side of the classroom: Zuko in Seat 1, his sister in the captain’s seat. She had to be his sister, their faces were so alike if you ignored the scar on Zuko’s and the cruel smile on hers when she saw the Omashu kids filing in laughing. Then Bored Math Girl in 2, then Happy Bio Girl in 3. Their coach, a tall man with a well-groomed moustache, was sitting in the back reading a book. (About swords, Sokka couldn’t help but notice with interest.)

Sokka and Aang had been teasing Katara more about Jet while Suki walked behind, arm in arm with Toph, but when they entered the room and saw the Sozin kids sitting, spines straight, staring straight ahead, they fell silent. _Nice intimidation_ , Sokka thought to himself. Dammit, they should have come back from lunch earlier. “Those fuckers _Art of War_ ’ed us,” he whispered to Suki. 

However, the effect was broken when Happy Bio Girl gasped. “Toph?” she said excitedly.

Toph’s head turned toward the sound. “Ty Lee?” she asked incredulously. “What! I didn’t know you did this shit!”

Ty Lee started to stand up to go say hi, but at a fierce glare from their captain, she sat back down. “It’s good to see you,” she said, a little sadly.

“Well, I can’t see you, but it’s good to hear you,” Toph said.

Katara was looking at her incredulously. “You know her?” she asked.

“Oh yeah. Small school. Ty Lee was my lab partner. Hey, is Mai there?”

Bored Math Girl leaned out of her perfect posture. “Hi, Toph,” she said, sounding as though she was greeting a tax assessor, rather than a fellow rich kid who had been kicked out of her private school for capital-S Shenanigans.

“All right, all right, that’s enough fraternizing,” said their captain. 

Toph’s eyes opened a little wider as she recognized the voice, suddenly without a sassy comment. Sokka didn’t like that. Not much made Toph nervous. He saw Aang, looking at the neat row of Sozin students, wringing his hands like he did when he got a question wrong.

Nerves didn’t help anyone. He needed to lead. Co-lead. “Hey y’all, come on, bring it in,” he said. “Quick battle plan before the judge gets here.”

The five of them huddled up, ignoring the looks of the Sozin Academy kids. Sokka tried not to think about the fact that Zuko could hear him, but he still spoke in a low voice. “I know y’all are nervous. I am too,” he said. “But nervous is just a way to label physiological arousal, okay?”

“Ew, Sokka,” Toph said.

“Not like, arousal arousal, Jesus Christ Toph.” Sokka almost glanced across the room at Zuko, then checked himself. “You know what I mean. Heart pounding, hands sweating, mouth dry.”

“The sympathetic nervous system,” Katara said.

“Exactly. But those aren’t just bad things. They’re also signs of excitement. Of readiness for the attack, the hunt, like our ancestors of yesteryear.” Sokka felt himself getting carried away. He re-focused. “We can do this. Let’s get excited, friends. This is just another practice. Aang, we’ll sit you out first, try and stack Earth Science a bit.”

Aang took a deep breath and smiled. “Makes sense. Toph, I’ll bet you a milkshake I get more toss-ups than you.”

Toph grinned back, big and evil. “All right, you’re on. Plus, anyone who doesn’t get a tossup has to lick the doorknob of this classroom.”

“Toph,” said Katara. “That is such a health hazard.”

“Whatever, _Mom_ ,” said Toph. At that moment, her own mother, followed by Gyatso and Bumi, came into the classroom, and looked over in confusion at hearing the word “Mom” from Toph.

“Anything to add, co-captain?” Sokka asked, not about to jinx them again by not sticking to their battle plan routine.

“Two things,” said Suki. “One, let’s fucking do this. And two, look behind you.”

Sokka, Katara, and Aang all turned. Coming along behind Gyatso and Bumi were--

“Dad!” Katara said. “And Gran Gran!”

Sokka followed her gaze. There he was, their dad Hakoda, their mom’s mom Gran Gran in tow. He looked exhausted-- he wouldn’t have slept, yet, if he’d had time to shower and put on his nicest flannel and drive Gran Gran all the way out here. But here he was.

Sokka smiled, a huge one from somewhere deep inside, almost running over like a little kid before remembering he was an adult now. He walked quickly instead, Katara right on his heels. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he said.

Hakoda smiled, rubbing his hand across his stubbled chin. “I couldn’t miss this,” he said. “Why didn’t you invite me? Gran Gran’s had it on the calendar for weeks.”

Sokka shifted guiltily. “Well, you had work,” he mumbled.

A sad expression passed over Hakoda’s face, but it was gone in moments. Ah, the preferred method of Sokka’s entire male lineage, deflect emotional pain with jokes. “The whole point of third shift is that my kids don’t have competitions at 3AM,” he said. “Well? How’s today going?”

Sokka and Katara exchanged glances. “Pretty good,” Katara said finally. “We had kind of a bumpy ride in pool play earlier, so we need to win all the rest of our matches if we want to make nationals.”

“Well then,” Gran Gran cut in, banging her cane against the ground. “I’m glad you saved the winning for when I got here!”

Sokka grinned, feeling the kind of safe happiness he only felt when so many of the people he loved were all together under one roof. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zuko, who was staring openly at the exchange with a kind of strange, sad intensity that somehow made Sokka’s heart hurt. None of the Sozin kids had family present.

“Where’s the judge?” he heard Azula ask, her voice cross. She had a point-- there were two minutes to the match by the clock on the wall, and no judge to be seen.

As if on cue, a very tall, lanky man with long dark hair sauntered in. He was one of those former-hippie looking science teachers, with a slow and soothing voice and a necklace of little white flower charms stitched together. “Hi, everyone, I’m Mr. Chong, an Environmental Science teacher here at Ba Sing Se.”

He spoke with a long drawl that Sokka worried meant they would get through fewer questions in their allotted sixteen minutes. “Will the match begin on time?” asked Azula, her words brittle and icy.

“Sounds like you really want to get the match started, huh,” he said, as though musing on that. “All right, let’s get to it. Captains, come on up.”

Sokka looked at his dad. “Thanks for coming,” he said. “Really.”

Hakoda smiled back at Sokka (they were nearly the same height, now), and clapped him over the shoulder. “Get to it,” he said.

The Omashu team sat in their habitual seats, Aang giving Toph a fistbump before going back to sit with Gyatso. It was time for the captains to shake hands. Suki got up, posture ramrod straight, and shook the hand of--

“Azula,” she introduced herself.

“Suki,” Suki said back. “Good luck.”

“Don’t need it,” Azula responded.

Sokka raised his eyebrows. Instinctively, he glanced at Zuko, who was already looking at him. He looked away, at least having the decency to look slightly ashamed.

“All righty now, everyone,” said Mr. Chong, looking at the timer with distaste before hitting the start button. Eight minutes on the clock. “Question one, math, short answer. If the equations 2x + 8 = 4 and _a_ x – 30 = -22 have the same solution for x, what is the value of _a_?”

Silence, pencils scribbling on paper. Then a buzzer, impossibly fast, from Sozin. “A2,” Mr. Chong said.

Bored Math Girl-- Mai?-- lived up to her reputation, sounding like this entire competition was beneath her as she said, “Negative four.”

“Correct,” the judge said. As he read the bonus, Sokka could feel himself sweating. _It’s all right_ , he told himself. They had known Math was going to be a weak spot. Sozin locked in the bonus, Azula reading a long calculation from Mai’s paper.

Sokka’s heart pounded harder when the next category was Physics. He glanced at Zuko, who was staring at Mr. Chong like he was trying to predict the words that would come out of his mouth. “Toss-up, physics, short answer. The reason you are safe in your car during a lightning storm is because the body of the car forms an enclosure that blocks external electric fields. What is the name used to describe this type of enclosure?”

Sokka waited a fraction of a section too long, his mind wavering on what he remembered about lightning. Zuko’s buzzer lit up. Once he was acknowledged, he gave the answer: “Faraday cage.”

Sokka let out a breath. _C’mon, no one said it’d be easy_ , he told himself. Still, two questions was starting to be less of a comfortable deficit already, especially when they got the bonus, Azula asking Zuko three times if he was certain before giving the judge his answer. He couldn’t help but notice that the Sozin kids didn’t discuss bonuses much-- just let their team expert decide and pass it on.

“Question three, Earth and Space, multiple choice.” Sokka’s hand tensed on the buzzer. For a generalist like him, Earth and Space could be anything, and he wanted to be ready. If this got too deep into Earth lore, though, it’d probably go to Toph.

“What is the term for the lowest temperature that can be attained by evaporating water into the air? W, minimum temperature. X, wind chill temperature. Y, wet bulb temperature. Z-- interrupt, B2.”

Sokka glanced over in surprise. Katara’s buzzer was lit. “Wet bulb temperature,” she said.

“That’s correct,” Mr. Chong said.

Sokka’s heart pulsed with love for his sister. “Nice one, Katara,” he whispered.

She turned and glanced at Aang, who was beaming with pride. “Thank Aang for all the climate science articles,” she whispered back.

Toph nailed the bonus, an in-depth multiple choice about which type of rock had a “shale protolith”, which _definitely_ counted as deep Earth lore. Sokka wished they could all squish close together like they did in Bumi’s classroom so his teammates aside from Suki were within high-fiving distance.

The next toss-up was Chemistry, something about amorphous solids. No one interrupted, but Suki was beaten out at the razor’s edge by Azula, who had a genuinely wild look in her eyes. “Dang, she’s fast,” Suki breathed to Sokka while the other team worked on their bonus.

Sokka nodded. “You got it, dude, c’mon.”

Katara sniped the bio question, too, one about carcinomas. (That was a word that had made Sokka wince since their mom died.) Katara touched her necklace, but answered calm and cool as a cucumber, then worked with Suki on the bonus to distinguish between directional and stabilizing natural selection.

Sokka glanced at the round clock. Two minutes left. Not enough time. They needed more questions, more time. “Energy, short answer. When rubber is vulcanized in order to make it more durable, what element is added-- interrupt, B1.”

Sokka had buzzed before he was even conscious of it, remembering the gaseous smell of the rubber factory he and Katara drove past every morning on their way through the outlying towns into the city. “Sulfur,” he said.

“Correct. Bonus, Energy, short answer. Identify all of the following five compounds that are products of glycolysis-- 1) Pyruvate, 2) NAD+, 3) ATP, 4) H2O, 5) CO2.”

The entire team (except Toph) was busy scribbling down the names of the compounds. “God da-- uh, darn it, this is basically bio. Katara, what you got?” Sokka asked.

“Pyruvate and ATP for sure, but I missed the last couple options,” Katara said, leaning toward Suki and Sokka.

“The last two options are water and CO2,” Suki told her. This was another classic captaining move by Suki-- whenever a bonus listed options, she always paid special attention to the end, knowing that the rest of the team often got caught up on the beginning choices.

Katara bit her lip. “Water, of course, because sweat. But CO2, too?”

“Go with your gut,” Sokka told her.

Katara hesitated.

“Five seconds,” Mr. Chong said. He really did have a melodic voice. Maybe he was a singer in his spare time. It would have been pleasant if it wasn’t annoying how slowly he was reading.

“Just water,” Katara said to Suki, who somehow managed to translate that to “1, 3 and 4.”

“Correct,” said Mr. Chong. There was less than a minute now, this would be the last question of the round. “Earth and Space, multiple choice. Which of the following glacial features can result from calving? W, drumlins, X, icebergs, Y, glaciers, Z, moraines-- A3.”

“Icebergs,” said Happy Bio Girl. 

Toph smacked her desk in frustration. “Should have interrupted,” she whispered. “I knew as soon as they said icebergs.” Toph was more of a “wait and listen” player, but these Sozin kids were wicked fast as soon as the question was read all the way through.

Huh. That was an interesting point. Sokka remembered Kyoshi’s captaining style, how he’d been terrified to hit the buzzer until he was absolutely certain. Maybe they were scared, too. As the Sozin team listened to the bonus question, Sokka leaned over to Suki and said quietly, “I think they’re pretty reluctant to interrupt.”

Suki’s eyes flickered back and forth as she thought back through the last several questions, then widened. “You’re so right,” she mouthed.

Sozin Academy didn’t get this bonus, which left them ahead by a mere four points. “I thought we entrusted you with Earth Science, Ty Lee,” said Azula. “I didn’t realize that I’d have to learn every subject myself for us to get these bonuses.”

 _Damn._ No wonder those guys were scared of with a captain like that. “All right, everyone, two minutes for the half,” said Mr. Chong. “Enjoy it, theydies and gentlethem.”

“Hey, y’all, let’s huddle up,” Sokka said. “Aang, Bumi, c’mere.” When their little group was hugged close all together, he spoke quietly. “Listen, they’re good, but we’re fucking in this. They don’t want to interrupt. I’m not saying we should interrupt if we don’t know the answer-- can’t afford to give them any freebies-- but we’re gonna need to be a little bold here. Katara, you absolutely killed it that round. Fucking love it.”

Katara gave him a glowingly proud grin. Sokka was glad his dad had been there to see her that round.

“Aang should go in,” said Toph, biting her lip. “There were already two Earth Science questions, and as much as I’m smarter and better and, I assume, prettier than Aang, he’s better with interrupts than I am.”

“That’s just ‘cause you actually listen and think,” said Aang, bumping her affectionately.

Suki nodded. “Let’s bring Aang in. Toph, great work on that shale question, not a chance any of us would have gotten that without you.”

Sokka glanced at the clock. Damn, two minutes went by quick. “Bumi, you got any advice?”

Bumi gave them all a smile, one of his crazy ones where his eyes seemed to roll around his head. “Trust the work you’ve done. Think like a mad genius if you have to think at all, but don’t think too hard. The answers are already there in long-term memory.”

Suki grinned. “Thanks, Bumi,” she said. “C’mon, gang. Back to our seats.”

Heart pounding, Sokka sat back down, just as Zuko returned to his seat. Since they were both in the 1 seat, they were next to one another, separated by mere feet. Sokka could have reached out and touched him. He could practically feel the nerves radiating off the other boy.

“All right, all right, let’s get back to this,” said Mr. Chong, and without preamble, reset the timer. “Question nine, Energy, multiple choice. Which of the following statements about coal is true? W, over 50% of the coal mined in the United States is bituminous. X, lignite has the highest-- interrupt, B3.”

Aang waited an extra second, realized he’d been acknowledged, checked himself. “W,” he said.

“Correct. Bonus, short answer. A water heater uses 4 kilowatts of electricity for 8 hours. To the nearest cent, how much does it cost to operate if the cost of electricity in your area is 10 cents per kilowatt hour?”

Long silence as everyone on the Omashu team scribbled calculations. Sokka’s brain went into overdrive, knowing that while Aang knew the most about energy, he and Suki were the team’s best bet on math.

“Five seconds,” Mr. Chong said.

“Three twenty?” Suki asked Sokka.

He glanced at his calculations and where they were going. “Three twenty,” he replied.

“Three twenty,” Suki repeated to Mr. Chong, bringing them into the lead. Sokka couldn’t stop glancing at the clock. _Focus, Sokka._

“Next question. Math, multiple choice. Which of the following is not an even function? W, cosine of x. X, cosine of x squared. Y, sin of x. Z-- interrupt, A2.”

“Y,” said Mai, who might have been asking “Y am I here? Y are any of us here?” for all the boredom in her voice. Apparently at least Mai wasn’t scared of Azula’s wrath, at least not enough to lose confidence on interrupting. 

They got the bonus, too. Sokka drummed his pencil against the table, watching the clock as they ran through it.

“Chemistry, multiple choice. Which of the following acts as a Lewis acid in the presence of water to form carbonic acid?--- interrupt, B Captain.”

Sokka swung his gaze toward at Suki, whose buzzer light was glowing red. It was hugely risky to interrupt that early on a multiple choice, before even hearing any of the options and how they’d be framed and phrased.

Suki stared straight ahead. Voice steely, she said, “Carbon dioxide.”

“That’s correct,” said the judge.

Sokka almost broke the swearing rule. “Suki, you absolute mad lad,” he whispered, pounding her on the shoulder.

She grinned as Mr. Chong read off the bonus-- a short answer, about acid base reactions. “Double displacement,” she said, without bothering to consult the team. It was good to see her flex a little.

Sokka kept score in the corner of his paper as the teams fought. Time was running out, and it was close, so close, as the teams alternated, hurling physics formulae and bio terminology at one another. 

“Toss-up, Physics, short answer. Name the three metals that generally comprise ferromagnetic-- Interrupt, B1.”

Sokka prayed to every science god he knew that he was right about where this question was going. He’d interrupted to beat Zuko. “Nickel, iron, and…” Oh God, was he blanking? Was he blanking? Nope, there it was, in long-term memory storage like Bumi said. “Cobalt.”

“Correct.”

Sokka added to the score on his paper as they worked through the bonus and got it, too. Tighter still. He glanced at the clock. Less than a minute. The next question would be the last, and unless he’d missed a question somewhere in there, Sozin was up, but only by a bonus. They needed to beat Sozin to the question, and not only that, but get the bonus too. He readied his fingers over the buzzer, heart pounding in his ears.

“Toss-up, Biology, short answer, What form of transport across membranes is mediated by channel proteins and requires no-- interrupt, A Captain.”

Sokka hung his head. Shit. Shit. Not bold enough. They’d lost.

“Simple diffusion,” said Azula.

Mr. Chong squinted at the sheet. “I’m sorry, that’s incorrect. Interrupt penalty.”

Sokka looked back up, eyes wide. Holy shit. “I’ll re-read. What form of transport across membranes is mediated by channel proteins and requires no input of energy?”

Katara’s buzzer lit up. She waited calmly to be acknowledged. “Facilitated diffusion,” she said.

 _Fuck yes, Katara_ , Sokka thought, keeping himself from swearing out loud. He crossed his fingers for an easy bonus. “Bonus, biology, multiple choice,” Mr. Chong said. “In which of the following female cervids would you find antlers? W, reindeer. X, okapi. Y, mule deer. Z, moose.”

They were all silent for a long moment. “Well, I have no idea,” said Katara.

“Okay, let’s think this through,” said Suki. “It’s not moose.”

“It’s not okapi,” Aang said. “I petted one at a zoo, once, and she didn’t have horns.”

Sokka looked around at his teammates. “Have…. have you ever seen a reindeer without horns?”

“Well, no, but I’ve never even heard of a mule deer,” Katara said.

“I mean, come on, some of Santa’s reindeer names are pretty girly,” Sokka said. “Cupid? Vixen? And they all had horns in that picture book we had growing up.”

“Five seconds,” Mr. Chong said.

Suki looked at Sokka. “Really? That’s your logic?”

“Best guess, Suki,” he said.

“Reindeer,” she said, turning back to Mr. Chong.

“That’s correct,” he said. “Huh, look at that. End of round.”

Sokka didn’t even hear what he said next, he was so busy leaning over in his chair to grab Suki and Katara in the biggest hug he could manage, his arms not quite reaching all the way over here. “Aang! Toph! Get in here!”

A mess of chairs and flailing limbs, they hugged. They’d done it-- they’d beaten Sozin, on their own terms, as a team. Their families (well, mostly) had been there to see it, crowding in to discuss the match, even Toph’s mom hugging Gyatso in celebration. Sokka couldn’t stop smiling. 

At least, not till Suki forcibly removed his arms (she had a match scoresheet to sign) and he glanced over at the Sozin kids. 

Azula was castigating Ty Lee for not having buzzed in on that last Bio question, even though, frankly to Sokka, that had been quite a risky interrupt. Formerly Happy Bio Girl’s eyes pooled with tears. Mai’s expression hadn’t changed a bit, though her jaw tightened as she watched Azula leave Ty Lee alone and stalk off to sign the scoresheet.

He looked at Zuko, whose hands were shoved in his pockets as he watched his teammates fall apart.

Well, that was demoralizing.

Suki, flushed with victory, came back over with her scoresheet. “All right, y’all. Nice work. C’mon, we’re switching rooms. Ba Sing Se next.”

“I’ll take the scoresheet, Suki,” Sokka said, needing to let off some steam. He walked to the cafeteria, his heart pounding as he reflected on the match. When he got there, he looked at the bracket, hardly daring to hope.

More good news: Ba Sing Se had eked out a victory against Foggy Swamp. That meant at least every team had one L on the board. They were in this, really in this, for nationals.

“Uh, hi again,” said a voice behind him. There was Zuko, dropping off his team’s copy of the scoresheet.

“Hey, nice game,” Sokka said back, his heart suddenly pounding again like he was ready on the buzzer. “It was a tight one.”

Zuko shrugged. “You guys pulled it out.” He dropped the scoresheet on the pile and turned away.

Sokka didn’t want the conversation to end there. He needed to know more. Maybe that was why Zuko kept reminding him of Yue. Every time Sokka talked to him, the boy’s mannerisms, his reluctant eye contact and tight posture, suggested someone struggling, scared, in need of protection. 

Plus, he was pretty fucking attractive, with his messy hair contrasting his clean uniform.

Still, all Sokka had to offer him was Science Bowl. “Hey, y’all have Foggy Swamp next, right? Don’t sleep on them, they’re pretty good on bio and earth, and definitely not scared to take risks.”

Zuko turned back. “Thanks,” he said. “Ba Sing Se wasn’t bad, but if you guys are as good on interrupts against them as you were against us, it’ll be no problem.”

He turned and walked away. Sokka let him. If he’d just been beaten, he might not want to talk either.

Still, he watched him walk away, and wondered.

*

After the tension and excitement of their Sozin match, the round against Ba Sing Se High felt like a walk in the park. Zuko was right-- Ba Sing Se was solid. They’d beaten Foggy Swamp in a nailbiter, after all. But it wasn’t enough for them. Sokka didn’t know if it was just that Omashu had gotten some swagger back after defeating the reigning champs, or if it was just that Toph, determined to prove herself and also determined to not to have to lick a doorknob, went absolutely off got no less than four toss-ups. 

Whatever it was, they sliced through the Ba Sing Se more smoothly than a drill through drywall. With the final question locked in (Sokka had gotten that one, no big deal, by correctly logicking out how many light-years Proxima Centurai was from the sun), they had cemented their spot at nationals-- with Ba Sing Se now at two losses, and one of Foggy Swamp or Sozin about to accrue a second loss, they’d be tied at the top with their 6-1 record.

Sokka explained all of this to the parents excitedly as they walked back to the cafeteria for the awards ceremony. Gran Gran had been incredibly taken with the experience of Science Bowl, already offering tips and tricks to the team as though this wasn’t a world she had entered into about an hour ago. (“Now, it seemed like you all need to work on your math. And sit up straight, you could take a lesson from those Sozin kids. You’ll need to practice more before nationals.”)

Once they were there, Sokka immediately scanned the room for Sozin Academy’s blazers. From the fact that Ty Lee and even Azula were smiling-- not to mention the fact that the Foggy Swamp guys were missing entirely, perhaps having ditched the competition altogether-- Sokka thought they might have won. His mind started racing, the way it did when he had an idea that was really good, or really bad.

“All right, it’s been a long, long day,” said Vice Principal Bosco. “After eight rounds and Thank God no tiebreakers, let’s get our winners up here. Reigning champs Sozin Academy, and then this year’s other nationals qualifier, Omashu Regional Magnet School!”

Even with the high of winning, of standing up at the front of the room with his friends and the Sozin team to receive awkward “Ba Sing Se High School” mugs as trophies with the bear mascot on the back-- apparently, Vice Principal Bosco hadn’t thought to get two trophies--Sokka couldn’t stop thinking of his seed of a plan.

After there had been some half-hearted clapping and one standing ovation from Bumi, the crowd started to disperse. There it was-- his chance. Sokka leaned toward the Sozin kids. This might be his last opportunity to talk to them for a while. He had to seize it. “Hey, Sozin peeps,” he said.

Zuko turned right away. Azula glanced at him incredulously, like she was shocked he’d deem to listen to an Omashu kid, then turned toward Sokka herself.

“Listen,” said Sokka. “We’re, uh, we’re having a party tonight to celebrate. You all want to come? You made natties too.”

He wasn’t sure who looked more startled-- the Sozin kids or his own teammates. Katara in particular looked ready to murder him.

“Uh, maybe,” Zuko said back, his neck and face flushing red.

“Can I get your number? You can come if you want, I’ll send you the deets.” He handed Zuko his phone. Sokka didn’t even care that the rest of the room could probably see this going down. No one was paying attention-- it was three PM and everyone was exhausted and hangry, getting ready to leave. All he cared was that this wasn’t the last time he saw Zuko. Nationals wasn’t for a few weeks, and it was a huge competition-- who even knew if he’d see Zuko there.

Glancing at his sister, who was watching this entire situation go down with an incredulous look on her face, he punched his number into Sokka’s phone. “Yeah, just uh… just text me.”

Despite his sweaty hands, Sokka tried to play it cool. “Will do,” he said, then turned to his team. “Hey champs, c’mon, let’s find our families and go get the fuck home.”

Suki raised her eyebrows as Aang and Toph giggled. “Right,” she said, in a tone of voice that let Sokka know he would be teased, without mercy or relent, the entire way home. “Champs indeed. Let’s get the hell out of Ba Sing Se.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me putting up last chapter: yeah, the next chapter is probably gonna be like three thousand words, i have a lot to get through.
> 
> me putting up this seven thousand word monstrosity: ................
> 
> anyway like i said, overwriting is the opposite of my usual problem but it is definitely my problem with this piece. so! i hope it is all enjoyable and not too in the weeds on science bowl logistics lol! this is the last chapter for a while that is In The Weeds science bowl stuff-- lots of drama and hijinks the next few chapters-- and i hope you'll like the next one ;)
> 
> i had a lot of fun with the SECRET TUNNELLLLLS guy as the last judge <3 i really tried to at least make the questions (mostly) thematic to bending prowess. (though the reindeer one is an actual question that i found too funny not to use.) also, not proud of how many times i had to google Coulomb's law. okay anyway, not gonna lie, next chapter is probably going to take a few more days, i'm an engineer in my real life job and i'm tryna get a big chonk of work out this week. and also due to the fact that next chapter has a LOT happen and it's in chaos right now. my goal is to have it out in a week, but i'm sensing it might be closer to ten days, so i hope you'll bear with me.
> 
> love to all of y'all who have been reading and commenting, it means a lot, especially as this AU is getting increasingly involved and ridiculous <3


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